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THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 



THE BOYS' BOOK 
OF RAILROADS 



By 

IRVING CRUMP 

Editor of Boys' Life, The Boy Scouts Magazine 

and Author of " The Boys' Book of Firemen," 

"The Boys' Book of Policemen," etc. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1921 



<©' 



COPYBIGHT, 1921 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



4 




/ 










SEP 20 1921 



©CI.A622853 



To 

"JIMMY" 

This Book is Affectionately 
Dedicated 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

One of the pleasures of writing this book has 
been the association I have had with scores of 
railroad men in various positions, from superin- 
tendent of a division and chief dispatcher down 
to the humble job of track walker. I want to 
make this an opportunity to express my ap- 
preciation to all of them for the assistance that 
they have given me in assembling many of 
the facts herein set forth. I am especially 
grateful for the interest and kindness of 
Mr. J. M. Condon, Superintendent of the New 
York Division of the Erie Eailroad, Mr. Thomas 
J. Kelly, Chief Dispatcher of the same Division, 
Mr. J. E. Ingling, Superintendent of Freight 
Service of the same road, and William Francis 
Hooker, also of the Erie Company and a genuine 
" Old Timer." 

During the time that I have been planning and 

writing this book I have frequently referred to 

several very helpful volumes on the subject of 

vii 



viii ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

railroads, and I should feel that I were very un- 
grateful if I did not express my sincerest appre- 
ciation of Edward Hungerford's " The Modern 
Kailroad" and "The Strategy of Great Kail- 
roads," by Frank H. Spearman, both of which I 
found tremendously interesting and of valuable 

assistance. 

I. C. 
Oradell, N. J. 



CONTENTS 



I Baw Material 

II In the Cab 

III With the Train Crew 

I Y The Vigilance of the Station Agent 

V Secret Service Stuff . 

VI Operating the Eoad . 

:VII The Man in the Tower 

VTII In the Koundhouse 

IX In the Freight Yard 

X The Wrecking Train 

XI Giants of the Line 

XII The Division's King 

XIII Bailroad History 



1 

24 

50 

74 

98 

118 

139 

164 

180 

194 

215 

238 

254 



IX 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Engineer J. C. Crowley oiling the 5015 before it 
starts to push a train up the Erie's Susque- 
hanna Hill. This is one of the largest loco- 
motives in the world. The 5015 weighs 432 
tons and has 24 drive- wheels j it has pushed 
250 loaded cars in a test . . Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The engineer is a very high type of railroad man. 
He must be, for to his care are entrusted hu- 
man lives and millions of dollars in property 36 

The track walker is a trouble hunter, always 
searching for defects along the line. He 
walks a good many weary miles a day . . 36 

The man on top of the freight car can be presi- 
dent of the road some day .... 60 

Slow freight but mighty important when a coal 

famine threatens a city 60 

Changing rails between trains means hard work 

for the section gang 92 

The station agent is a man of many responsibilities 92 

When the wrecking crew gets busy. The wreck- 
ing train has just arrived and the powerful 
derrick has begun to pick the wreck to pieces, 
lifting heavy cars bodily back upon the tracks 122 

An old type of switch tower where switches and 

signals are turned by hand .... 148 
xi 



xii ILLUSTKATIONS 

Inside the Terminal Tower where electricity does 

everything except the thinking . . . 148 

Bucking the drifts. A big snow plow forcing its 
way through drifts in an effort to keep the 
line open 210 

A modern passenger locomotive. Contrast this 

with the proud "dinky " below . . . 258 

A veteran of Civil War days, a real "flyer " of 

its time. f , , . 258 



The Boys' Book of Railroads 



CHAPTEE I 

RAW MATERIAL 

"It's as true as anything ever was," said the 
veteran roundhouse foreman with a smile, " rail- 
road men seem to be railroad men from the very 
beginning, — from the time they are chaps in knee- 
breeches. It seems to be in their blood. It 
used to be when a boy grew up in Salem or 
Gloucester he knew and his parents knew that 
as soon as he got old enough to ship he'd become 
a sailor, a whaler or fisherman or something of 
the sort. It was the salt water. It just seemed 
to be in the blood. The boy couldn't see any- 
thing but the sea for a future. 

"It's just that way with railroading. The 
romance of it gets into a fellow's blood, seems 
like. From the very beginning it takes hold of 
you and almost before you know it you find your- 



2 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

self just naturally gravitating toward the place 
where the shining steel rails and the trail of 
cross ties lead on, off into the distance, off to the 
other side of things you know, off to the places 
you yearn to go. That's the last step toward 
being a railroad man. Sooner or later you'll 
find your way into the railroad service in some 
job or another. After that it's like the sea — 
once you've been associated with those big iron 
horses and the clanking of the rails has become 
music to your ears, you rarely get over it. Once 
a railroad man, always a railroad man — at least 
so it seems to me." 

The wise old foreman spat, wiped off his chin, 
and gazed off in the direction of a side track, 
where a dozen still giants, veritable mastodons, 
with steam roaring from their exhausts and 
black smoke billowing from their stacks, were be- 
ing cared for almost tenderly by the " hostlers," 
preparatory to their departure for their night's 
work on the division. 

" Yes, sir," he mused half to himself, " it's a 
mighty funny thing, but I guess we're all the 
same. It's the romance of the thing, the adven- 
ture and the pure love of it all that brings most 



RAW MATERIAL 3 

of us into the game and keeps us there. Why, 
some fellow not long ago — he was a mathematics 
sharp, I guess — figured out that one out of every 
dozen to fifteen men in the country was on the 
pay-roll of a railroad. It don't seem possible, 
does it, but then railroading is a great game. 

" And let me tell you," he raised his voice a 
little here and seemed to challenge contradic- 
tion, " the men who follow railroading don't fol- 
low it because they can't do anything else. I 
mean it is a very high type of man we get in rail- 
roading — not the plug-ugly, or the down and out. 
No, sirree, they wouldn't last a day. They 
wouldn't even get a chance at our game — they'd 
never get through the employment office. 

" Railroad men are the highest type of men you 
can find. To be sure they are big fellows as a rule, 
broad chested, two fisted, and men you couldn't 
back down on anything. But they are clean, 
clear-eyed, level-headed fellows with brains. I 
want to emphasize that to you, young man, — 
they have brains and they are brains that have 
been trained to think quickly and clearly and to 
act with the best of judgment. Unless a man 
has a good set of machinery under his hat he 



4 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILKOADS 

can't get very far railroading, and the better his 
machinery is the farther he can get along the 
line. The offices of superintendent, general 
manager and even president with a salary of 
fifteen to twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars 
a year or more, if he is worth it, are open to men 
who are climbing up from the line. They are 
the kind of men the directors want in official 
position, and there is many a big railroad man in 
office to-day who started firing or as call boy in 
a roundhouse. See that chap over there in 
jumpers and gloves, the one just climbing into 
the cab of No. 988, Mai Crawford, that's who he 
is. Young fellow, isn't he, to be an engineer? 
But Mai's the best we've got around here. He's 
too good for his job even now at his age and the 
bosses all know it. He's slated for a bigger 
job — a lot bigger job. Wouldn't be at all sur- 
prised to see him superintendent of this division 
in a year or two, and he won't stop there. He'll 
go higher. 

" Say," he seemed to be inspired, " Mai's the 
very man for you. If you want to know how a 
fellow gets to be a railroad man get hold of him ; 
get his story and you'll know what I mean when 



RAW MATERIAL 5 

I say it is the romance of railroading that gets 
into our blood and just won't let us get very far 
from the sound of a locomotive whistle." 

The veteran roundhouse foreman's suggestion 
was a good one and I hurried over to the cab of 
No. 988 to get a word with Engineer Mai Craw- 
ford, before he began to ease his big steel horse 
out onto that network of track of the terminal 
yard. He smiled when I told him what I 
wanted. Would he tell me his story? Sure, if 
it was worth while he'd tell me all about it some 
time when he got a chance. 

But I never did get the full story from Mai, 
only snatches of it. Most of it I gathered from 
his friend and from other sources and what I 
gathered follows. 

****** * 

It was three hours after midnight — a " mighty 
dirty morning " — as big Bill Sexton, brakeman 
on No. 38, the slow Chicago freight, classified it. 
Although the rain, that had been falling steadily 
for two days, had left off since the hour of twelve, 
the air was chilled and the night was overcast, 
the blackness, blanket-like and almost suffocat- 
ing in its thickness. 



6 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

It was not a strange hour for railroad men 
to be awake and active, for these men of the 
line know no regularity of waking and sleep- 
ing hours, but it was a strange hour for a boy 
of eighteen to be abroad. However, Malcolm 
Crawford had several things on his mind that 
morning, not the least of which was his desire 
to be at a certain trout stream six miles from 
town before gray dawn began breaking in the 
east. 

Up Ulster Avenue of the little town of Bridge- 
boro, toward the railroad station, Mai swung his 
way, fish rod in hand and home-made creel slung 
over his shoulder. Mai felt the chill and the ex- 
cessive blackness of the night. The half dozen 
gas street lamps scattered along the street 
scarcely seemed to puncture the darkness, while 
far ahead, at the railroad tracks, red and green 
signal lamps seemed to blink with an effort, as 
if trying to battle against the smother of black- 
ness. The only really strong rays that dispelled 
the night with any success was the white shaft 
of the powerful headlight of the big "freight 
hog " locomotive that headed the long string of 
cars of the Chicago freight, held on the siding, 



EAW MATERIAL 7 

to await the passing of the Chicago limited 
which Mai knew was due to go flying through 
Bridgeboro within half an hour. 

As the boy swung up the street toward the 
tracks, he kept his eyes fastened on the winking 
signal lights and the large shaft of the engine's 
headlight. 

" Doggone," he mused to himself, " that's the 
work I'm cut out for. Railroading must be 
about the bulliest sort of a job a fellow could 
want. I could see a lot more of the world, live 
out-of-doors and make something of myself at 
that game. But here I am stuck in a down-at- 
the-heel town in a down-at-the-heel job in a fac- 
tory office." Mai grinned to himself. 

" I don't mean down-at-the-heel — I mean down 
and out job," he added with a smile, for that was 
one of the problems Mai had on his mind at the 
moment. He had lost his job. Not through 
inefficiency. Not through any personal fault. 
The shoe factory he had been working in had 
been the failure. It had closed its doors the day 
before and Mai with seventy other men of 
Bridgeboro suddenly found himself wondering 
what to turn to next. 



8 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROAD^ 

It was not a big misfortune in his case, how- 
ever, for he had his parents to fall back on. He 
had been graduated from high school but two 
months before and had taken the position in the 
office of the shoe factory in order to be occupied 
while he determined what was to be his future 
occupation. 

His short experience of office work had, how- 
ever, taught him that working indoors cramped 
over a desk piled with yawning ledgers was 
not the sort of a life he would choose to lead. 
Mai liked the out-of-doors too well for that. 
That was the reason why he had seized his fish- 
ing rod and creel and aroused himself at the un- 
usual hour of three o'clock that morning. He 
meant to spend this first day of idleness off 
beside a trout brook, where he knew the water 
was high and the fish would be hungry after the 
rain. 

The long siding on which the big freight 
engine stood panting ran directly across Ulster 
Avenue and Mai could but pause a moment and 
watch with interest the activities of the train 
crew, who like gnomes, with dangling lanterns, 
moved from car to car, seizing the opportunity 



RAW MATERIAL 9 

while the train was on the siding to inspect their 
charges thoroughly. 

Presently big Bill Sexton, brakeman, dodged 
out from between two cars in front of Mai where 
he had been inspecting an air brake coupling. 

" Hello, old scout. Top o' the mornin' to you, 
even though it is a mighty dirty one to be out in," 
said the always affable Bill as he grinned at 
MaL 

" It is a sort of rotten weather, isn't it? " 
said Mai cheerily, " but it will be good for fish- 
ing." 

" Fishing, laws, boy, I wish I were going fish- 
ing right now instead of tinkering on this old 
string of freights," said Bill as he removed a 
dirty glove and felt for a handkerchief with 
which to wipe the perspiration from his fore- 
head. 

" Huh, I wish I had your job tinkering on your 
old freight cars. I'd like to work on a railroad, 
believe me," said Mai with a smile. "Laying 
over for the Chicago flyer to go down?" he 
queried. 

" Yep," replied Bill as they parted, " she's due 
in ten minutes but I heard she was a few minutes 



10 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

late. That means she'll come through here 
a-roarin', tryin' to make up time. So long. 
Wish you luck. Hope you get a big one." 

" So long," called Mai, and he swung off down 
the long line of freight cars, crossed over in the 
glare of the engine's headlight and started 
stumping down the ties, for the railroad right of 
way crossed his favorite trout stream about four 
miles below the town of Bridgeboro. 

The night seemed blacker than ever as he left 
the headlight's glare, but Mai knew this stretch 
of railroad as well as he knew the main street of 
the town. 

" Guess I'd best get a wiggle on if I don't want 
to get caught in the cut with the Chicago limited 
coming down on top of me," he said to himself 
as he increased his stride. He knew that just 
around the bend the track cut through a steep 
bank of clay and rock that rose twenty feet above 
the road-bed. It was a mighty unpleasant place 
to be caught in while a train was passing, for if, 
as it often happened, an up train came through 
at the same time, one had little choice but to 
flatten one's self against the clayey bank and 
hope that the train would pass without hitting 



RAW MATERIAL 11 

one. It was close and unpleasant quarters to 
say the least, and Mai knew he would feel 
far more comfortable with the cut behind 
him. 

Soon he was rounding the long curve that led 
into the cut. He paused a moment to listen for 
a sound of the expected flyer. 

"I suppose I could climb up over the bank 
and follow the wagon road. Then I'd have 
nothing to worry about," he told himself. He 
even paused a moment to consider the ques- 
tion. 

" Oh shucks, I might as well go on," he 
said. "I've done it before. I can't hear her 
coming and anyhow she's late. I'll get through 
all right." And having made the decision he 
pushed on, little realizing how much this de- 
cision was going to mean to him and others in a 
few minutes. 

In the cut the darkness seemed even blacker. 
Mai strode on as swiftly as he could over the 
uneven ties. He could feel the damp, rain- 
soaked walls towering over him. Rain water 
trickled from rock to rock and splashed down 
into the drain ditch beside the tracks. There 



12 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

was a raw earthy smell in the cut. Mai had 
often smelled the same odor in the spring time 
where frost and thaw had caused the earth to 
slide. 

Presently MaPs foot struck something soft on 
the track. Another step and he plunged ankle 
deep into soft earth covering the ties and rails, 
then he stumbled over a good sized rock and 
sprawled headlong, not to the track but into a 
bank of earth and stone that had slid down onto 
the track. 

Even as he struggled to regain his feet he 
became conscious of more dirt and showers of 
pebbles falling about him. Then suddenly 
with the roar of a great mass of earth falling, 
Mai felt a second slide into the cut, just ahead 
of him. Great clods from the extreme outside 
edge of the caved-in bank plunged down upon 
him. One caught him squarely between the 
shoulders as he struggled to get up, and knocked 
him flat again. Then as he rolled over more fell 
upon him and, with a dull thud and crushing 
force, a rock as big as his head crashed down and 
grazed his side. Mai cried out with pain and 
rolled over in the first agonies of the blow. He 



RAW MATERIAL 13 

clasped his side and knew by the feeling that 
flesh and bone had given way under that terrific 
impact. 

With a painful effort he struggled to his feet 
again and blindly staggered out of the cut back 
the way he had come. His head was in a whirl 
and his mind seemed muddled and fear-struck 
with the pain he suffered and the sudden shock 
of it all. His only clear thought was that he 
must get out of the cut, out of the path of the 
sliding bank, out of danger. Almost in a panic 
he plunged up the tracks until he knew by in- 
stinct that he was out from between the over- 
hanging walls of the cut. 

For a moment he paused and stood between 
the tracks swaying giddily with the pain he was 
suffering and trying to master himself. He was 
bewildered but in his bewilderment he knew that 
there was something he must do — something he 
had to do before he could give way to his pain 
and suffering. 

It was then that he thought of the Chicago 
flyer — the express that was due to come roaring 
through that cut in a few minutes. Somehow 
Mai's brain cleared like a flash. He understood 



U THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

everything. The rains of the past two days had 
loosened the heavy earth above the cut and it had 
slid down onto the tracks, covering the rails with 
several feet of earth and rocks. 

He remembered vaguely hearing of a similar 
slide in that same cut ten years past when a 
freight train had been wrecked by it. A stone 
retaining wall had been built then in the more 
dangerous places in the cut, but evidently this 
had given way under the pressure of earth and 
rock. The tracks were buried and the Chicago 
limited was due any minute ! 

With a groan of pain and despair Mai plunged 
forward through the darkness, staggering over 
the tracks toward the Bridgeboro station and 
siding where the lone freight train was being 
held over to await the passing of the flyer. It 
was here and only here that the fast train could 
be stopped. Unless he could reach the freight 
train and warn one of the crew to flag the flyer 
the great passenger train would plunge to dis- 
aster in the cut. 

She was due in ten minutes ! It seemed hours 
ago that Mai had heard that. Could he make it? 
He must! He would. Forward he staggered, 



EAW MATERIAL 15 

stumbling blindly on, suffering agonies from the 
pain in his side. 

Presently he ran clear of the turn that pre- 
ceded the cut and had a clear view of the stretch 
of tracks to and beyond Bridgeboro. 

There on the siding stood the big freight with 
its panting engine, the long finger-like rays 
of its headlight reaching toward him, while 
other lights bobbed about it and red and green 
switch and signal lights winked at him. Oh, if 
he were only in the glare of that headlight, he 
could signal and shout a warning. He was half 
afraid he would collapse before he got there. It 
seemed so far — so far and it required so much 
strength and will power for him to go on. 

Suddenly he was spurred on to renewed effort 
by still another light. Away beyond Bridge- 
boro, deep, deep into the darkness of the night, 
he saw a glow above the track, the red glow of an 
open furnace door, while the tops of the trees 
were faintly lit by the white glare of another 
headlight. It was the Chicago limited roaring 
through the night, plunging swiftly forward 
toward him and the cut behind him and the sure 
destruction that awaited it. 



16 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILKOADS 

Mai cried out in his anxiety and with every 
ounce of strength plunged forward. On and on 
he pushed himself, shouting at the top of his 
voice between great sobs of breath. 

Oh, if he could only make some one hear, — 
some one hear and understand. It could not be ! 
It must not be. That flying train loaded with 
hundreds of human lives must not plunge into 
the cut to be derailed and wrecked by the slide. 

On and on he struggled. Oh, if he could only 
reach the white glare of the headlight on the 
freight engine. Then the engineer and fireman 
would see him and perhaps understand. 

He struggled on a hundred feet more. The 
glow of the fires of the flyer and the glare of its 
headlight were growing more distinct with every 
passing second. At a mile a minute she was 
rushing toward him. And he, on clumsy feet 
and with aching side and splitting head, was 
racing with her, racing to reach the freight and 
the assistance of the freight crew. 

Fifty feet more and he would be in that path- 
way of light from the freight engine's lamp. 
Twenty-five feet, twenty, fifteen. He was stag- 
gering now and waving his arms like a madman. 



EAW MATEEIAL 17 

He felt his strength going and the grip of his will 
power failing. 

On he stumbled. A few feet more, only a 
few. He could hear the roar of the flyer far 
down the tracks. She was late and tearing 
through space to make up for lost time. He 
must save her! He must! He was almost be- 
side himself now in his agony. Pain and fear 
of the catastrophe that would result if he failed 
had made him beside himself. He shouted, he 
screamed in terror and waved his arms. He 
stumbled, fell forward, rolled over and dragged 
himself to his knees. He tried to get up. His 
strength was all but spent. It took a mighty 
effort, but he reached his feet. He took one step 
forward and stopped, swayed a moment, then 
collapsed in a heap, for everything had gone 
black. There, almost lifeless he lay in the white 
rays of the freight engine's headlight sprawled 
across the rails and the ties, helpless. 

******* 

Dave Dickson, engineer of the freight locomo- 
tive, waiting for the limited to go by so he could 
start his long train out of the siding, was start- 
led to see, from the cab window, the form of a 



18 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

boy staggering blindly up the tracks in the glare 
of his engine's headlight. The lad seemed fran- 
tic. He was waving his arms and shouting like 
a maniac. Then he collapsed into an apparently 
lifeless heap almost in front of the locomotive. 

"What in time — quick, Jim, something's 
wrong. That chap out there, did you see him? " 
Jim Britton, the fireman, had seen him and he 
and the engineer swung down from opposite 
sides of the cab at the same moment. The 
engineer bumped into the burly form of big Bill 
Sexton as he landed on the ground. 

" Quick, Bill, something's wrong," he shouted, 
and the three rushed over to the limp form be- 
tween the rails. The engineer stooped down 
and turned Mai over on his back. Big Bill Sex- 
ton recognized him immediately. 

"It's the chap who was going fishing. He 
went down the track. Look, he's covered with 

mud and dirt. He Great guns, he was 

making for that cut and— and " 

" Bill, there's something wrong. Listen, he's 
talking. 'The cut — limited — cave in.' Great 
Scott, Bill, quick, flag the limited, — flag it some- 
thing's wrong. Something's happened in " 



EAW MATERIAL 19 

But Bill Sexton was not there. He was leap- 
ing across the track and waving Ms lantern 
madly toward the roaring limited now rushing 
up the stretch of tracks paralleling the siding. 

It was a tense and awful moment. Even Bill 
Sexton, with all his railroad training, shouted at 
the top of his voice as the big engine of the 
limited roared past, forgetting that his voice 
could scarcely carry above the roar of the big 
locomotive. 

But the engineer of the limited had seen his 
light just in time. Two short querulous shrieks 
sounded from the flyer's whistle, then, with a 
hiss, the air let go and sparks flew as the brake- 
shoes clamped down on the grinding wheels. 
But with all this the great train crunched and 
clanked a hundred yards further down the tracks 
before she came to a full stop. 

******* 

" Two broken ribs and slight internal injuries 
that will not prove serious," Mai heard some one 
say as if through a fog. Then he opened his eyes 
to find himself in his own room at home so 
trussed up in bandages that he could scarcely 
move. 



20 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILBOADS 

A strange physician, and the local physi- 
cian of Bridgeboro were bending over him. 
There was a white-capped nurse in the room, too, 
and his father and another man, a very stern 
looking man, were standing at the foot of the 
bed. 

"Ah, he's conscious," said the strange physi- 
cian, whereupon every one in the room looked at 
him and he felt very much embarrassed. 

" Fine ! " exclaimed the very stern looking 
stranger. " You've been pretty badly off these 
three days past, young fellow. You had us all 
worried, even though we did know you had a fine, 
clean, strong young body to fight with. I feel 
better now to know you are nearer being alive 
than dead, as you have been. I'm Buckman, the 
superintendent of this division. Came up to-day 
to see how our railroad physician and nurse were 
taking care of you. But now that you're con- 
scious, I want to thank you for what you did and 
the lives and property you saved for us the other 
night. And let me add, that when you are well 
I want to see you in my office at Kingsland. 
Bill Sexton tells me you are interested in rail- 
roading and your dad here confirms it. That's 



EAW MATEKIAL 21 

fine. There will be a job waiting for you when 
you report at Kingsland, my boy, for we need 
just your kind in railroading." 

******* 

That is how Mai Crawford got into railroad- 
ing. But he did not get in because of his heroic 
act alone. He got in because, as Superintendent 
Bucknian said, the railroad needed just his kind, 
men with courage, grit, and a fine, well-trained, 
quick-acting brain. 

Eailroading is comparable with no other voca- 
tion or trade because of the responsibilities the 
men employed in it are called upon to bear. 
Where in any other trade or occupation, save 
perhaps that of pilot, does one man or one little 
group of men hold the safety of hundreds of 
human beings and thousands of dollars' worth of 
property in his hand, so to speak? In what 
other line of employment does the safety of so 
many and so much depend upon the clearness of 
eye and the swiftness of thought? 

The men who operate our railroads are picked 
from among their fellow men as best fitted for 
the responsibilities that are given them. They 
are educated and well read, they are sober, in- 



22 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

dustrious, upstanding citizens. Indeed, they 
must be, for look what they are called upon to 
do. 

It is their daily task to move great groups of 
human beings or valuable cargoes of freight over 
the country in rushing trains that must make 
speed on their steel highway. They are called 
upon to do this and keep their trains moving in 
time and in relation to other similar trains, to 
switch and shunt the cars here, there and every- 
where and always in safety. A crash between 
trains or cars of a train is all too often fatal to 
life and dangerous to property. 

To do this these men of the railroads must 
know the giant steel steeds they pilot as thor- 
oughly as a boy knows his parents, or the parents 
know their boy. They must be able to handle it 
and control it under all conditions and circum- 
stances. 

They must know the hundreds of miles of 
tracks and side tracks, with their tunnels, cross- 
ings, grades, and bridges, and their myriads of 
switches and sidings, as well as a pilot knows the 
river he navigates. Indeed, these men in over- 
alls and jumper must be as familiar with the 



EAW MATERIAL 23 

line as the average boy is familiar with the street 
he lives on. 

Signals, train schedules, and a host of operat- 
ing details must be so clear in their minds that 
the knowledge is automatic. Never once dare 
they make a mistake, for not one of them knows 
but what a single mistake may mean an appal- 
ling loss of life and the destruction of millions of 
dollars in property. 

When all this is considered we can easily 
understand why railroad men are picked men, 
why Superintendent Buckman was so eager and 
willing, ten years ago, to induce Mai Crawford 
to become a railroad man. He saw in Mai the 
type of boy he knew would develop into the type 
of man that the railroads must depend upon. 
And we can understand why the veteran round- 
house foreman assured us that Crawford was 
bound for a higher and better job with even 
greater responsibilities than those that are his as 
engineer. 

Indeed, even while this book is being writ- 
ten Mai (of course that is not his real name, 
for he would not care to have his real name 
used) has been elevated one step nearer to the 
office of superintendent of the division. 



CHAPTER II 

IN THE CAB 

Ask the average locomotive engineer if he ever 
had any thrilling experiences, any narrow 
escapes or any really close situations where 
quick thinking and quick action were demanded, 
and he'll say no. 

" Shucks/' rumbled a great, big powerful fel- 
low with closely cropped hair, who drives a fast 
passenger train into Jersey City every morning, 
" shucks, no. There aren't any thrills, just 
plain humdrum every-day experiences. That's 
all." 

Any fireman you ask will tell you the same 
thing. 

They are not evading the question. They 

are truthful when they make the statements they 

do, for to most of them the expression " all in a 

day's work " means just that and nothing more. 

But the average human being knows that they 
24 



IN THE CAB 25 

are wrong. They are constantly facing situa- 
tions that would make the other fellow's hair 
stand on end and his courage ooze out of his 
finger tips. Indeed, they have become so accus- 
tomed to quick thinking and quick action that 
they hardly know how to distinguish the heroic 
from the commonplace. 

Take the experience of Fireman Tracy — Jim 
Tracy, we'll call him, for he is too modest to be 
willing to have his name appear in print. . 

Jim Tracy was firing for Gordon Nixon on No. 

8, the fast passenger express between S 

and W . No. 956 was their engine, one of 

those hard coal burning, camel back type, where 
the cab is perched midway on the boiler and the 
fire pot reaches to the rear. On engines of this 
kind the driver is alone by himself cooped up in 
his cab forward, while the fireman is between the 
fire box and the tender — a mighty unsociable 
sort of an arrangement since the two men are 
separated by ten or twelve feet of boiler with 
only a narrow board foot-path by way of reach- 
ing each other in case of trouble. 

But Nixon and Tracy had been driving old 956 
so long that the arrangement had grown to be 



26 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

perfectly satisfactory. Up forward the engineer 
operated the train, knowing full well that behind 
him Tracy was firing with the care and attention 
that all good firemen devote to their work. 
Number 8 was an evening train out from 

S that made a run of 148 miles to 

W arriving there in the small hours of the 

morning. It was a fast run with but few more 
than half a dozen stops and these only at the big 

towns on the way to W which is the state 

capital. Every night they pulled out of the ter- 
minal at S at 9.35 promptly and every 

morning at ten minutes after two they arrived at 

W , old No. 956 thundering into the train 

shed, snorting and puffing for all the world like 
a big animal of steel whose brazen lungs were 
heaving and panting after the run. But there 
came a morning when the hour of two ten passed 
and No. 8 did not put in her appearance at the 
W terminal. Indeed it was after three be- 
fore she rolled into the train shed and wonder of 
wonders, it was not Nixon but a strange engineer 
who climbed down from the cab, while a mighty 
relieved looking Tracy swung down from behind 
the fire box. It all happened this way. 



EST THE CAB 27 

It was a cold but snowless December night. 
Nixon and Tracy buttoned their overcoats about 
them as they left the warm companionship of the 
glowing stove in the bunk house. Lunch pails 
in hand, they began picking their way toward 
the roundhouse across the network of track in 
the yard. Eed and green signal lamps seemed 
to wink and blink in the frosty air, while above 
them gaunt semaphore arms with their equip- 
ment of lights stood out against the cold starlit 
night sky. 

Across the yard was the roundhouse, from 
which rolled clouds of black smoke and white 
steam, to be whipped away into the night by the 
bleak wind. Beside this strange looking stable 
for the engines were the glowing ash-pits about 
which gnome-like figures worked with long 
pokers cleaning out the fire boxes of several 
powerful locomotives, that, with their day's work 
done, were being made ready for their rest period 
in the stalls of the roundhouse. 

Beyond the ash-pits on another track were 
several other engines, their fires up, and 
steam hissing from cylinders and exhausts, look- 
ing for all the world like steeds champing at 



28 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

their bits and waiting to be off. Busy hostlers 
and wipers were pottering about giving them 
their final touches before their departure for the 
night's run. 

One of these was Nixon's 956 and the engineer 
and fireman automatically looked the big camel 
back over as they approached. Stripping off his 
overcoat, Tracy climbed up between fire box and 
tender. The scorching heat from the furnace 
doors as he swung them open to inspect the fires 
felt mighty good after the bleak winds of the 
night. 

Nixon did not climb to his place immedi- 
ately. Instead, he reached into the cab for kero- 
sene torch and long goose-necked oil can, and, 
with this in one hand and the light in the other 
he began to inspect his big charge, squirting tiny 
jets of oil into various places with a care that 
almost suggested affection for the big beast. 

Presently he finished, and, with a word to 
Tracy about the yellow train order sheet he held 
in his hand, he went forward and climbed into 
his cab. Then he eased steam into the cylinders 
and with a great hissing and snorting the engine 
rumbled slowly across one switch after another 



IN THE CAB 29 

and backed down toward the train shed where, 
on track three, the string of coaches and sleepers 
had already been made up and were waiting for 
the engine to be coupled fast. 

At 9.35 on the dot Nixon saw the yard signals 
giving him all clear, and with the monotonous 
call of the train crew's " All aboard ! " echoing 
through the terminal and the clanging of iron 
gates, No. 8 started rumbling off on her nightly 
trip. 

Across the switches of the yard they clanked, 
then through the roaring gas-filled tunnels and 
out onto the broad meadows that reached away 
toward the distant mountain. Here the winking 
signal lights were left behind and Nixon knew 
that he had a clear track with plenty of room for 
speed until he struck the stiff grade that would 
let them into the mountains through which their 

way to W— led. Slowly the engineer 

opened the throttle and No. 956, as if eager to be 
unleashed, rushed forward with a roar, drag- 
ging its snake-like appendage of coaches and 
sleeper through the night at forty-five miles an 
hour. 

On and on they thundered while Tracy, know- 



30 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

ing each, curve and grade, watched his fires and 
steam gauges to see that the engine had power 
enough to carry her through. Past fields, 
through sleeping towns, over bridges, through 
cuts and tunnels they roared, the engine's siren- 
like whistle shrieking warnings as they raced 
through the night. 

The first hour of the run had slipped by when, 
suddenly, Tracy got a strange presentiment that 
something was wrong. He became peculiarly 
uneasy. He wondered what it was that dis- 
turbed him. He paused a moment in his shovel- 
ing and listened. There was nothing wrong 
about the rhythmic throbbing of the engine and 
the constant clanking rumble of the big drive 
wheels over the rails. It was all quite regular 
and as it should be. Quite too regular, Tracy 
began to think. He noticed that there was 
hardly a variation in the speed of the train. It 
had gone on at the same high rate of speed for 
goodness knows how long. There had been no 
slowing up for crossings or curves. 

Even as Tracy was turning the matter over in 
his mind, the train struck a sharp curve which 
Tracy instantly recognized as one at which 



IN THE CAB 31 

Nixon always eased up a little in his speed. 
There was no change in speed to-night ; the train 
struck the curve art a smashing rate and whipped 
around it under such perilous headway that 
Tracy staggered across the narrow confines of 
his own cab. He wondered as he clutched to 
save himself from falling, why the rear cars of 
the train were not snapped off the tracks. 

Then another disturbing situation arose in 
Tracy's mind. He recalled that he had not 
heard the deep-throated whistle of the locomotive 
for a long time despite the fact that several seri- 
ous grade crossings and at least three whistle 
posts had been passed during the last ten 
minutes. 

"What on earth ails Nixon to-night? He's 
running like a madman. Why doesn't he blow? 
Why ? " 

Tracy stopped, startled at the thought that 
flashed through his brain. 

Could anything have happened to Nixon? 
Was he ill? Was he injured? Was he (Tracy 
shuddered at the thought) dead at the throttle? 
The fireman had heard of such an accident on 
another line and it frightened him to think that 



32 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILROADS 

perhaps his partner had passed away of heart 
failure or something else up there in his little 
cab, and the train with its precious freight 
of human beings was roaring down the night 
with a dead man's hand clutching the throt- 
tle. 

Tracy leaped to the window of his own cab 
and looked ahead. For several seconds he strove 
to pierce the blackness with eyes that were 
blinded by the glare of the furnace. And as the 
outline of the cab became clear to his vision he 
gasped with surprise, for he was certain that he 
could see the limp form of Nixon hanging out of 
the window of the engineer's compartment, one 
arm flapping loosely against the cab's side, while 
his head rolled on his shoulder each time the 
engine swayed. 

A closer scrutiny left no doubt in Tracy's 
mind of what he saw, and he knew that he must 
climb to the engineer's cab and take control of 
the flying train immediately. But what a task 
that was to be ! Tracy saw it only as a matter 
of duty, nor did he reckon the risks he would 
have to run. "Not once did he consider that 
only a narrow path of board scarcely six inches 



IN THE CAB 33 

wide afforded him access to the cab. Not once 
did he think of the perilous rate the train was 
going, of the curves ahead around which it 
would careen in its mad flight onward, of the 
cutting cold of the December night and the roar- 
ing arctic wind created by the train's headlong 
plunge. None of these factors entered Tracy's 
mind, or if they did they did not cause him to 
hesitate a fraction of a second. 

Without even pulling on his overcoat, though 
his body reeked with sweat from the heat of the 
fires, he climbed through the narrow doorway 
of his cab, and, clutching at the iron railing, 
crept out on to the narrow pathway that led to 
Mxon's cab. The blast of cold air that struck 
him caused him to gasp for breath, and the sway- 
ing of the speeding engine made him cling on 
with all his strength. 

Stronger courage than Tracy's would have 
failed there, for every inch of that fifteen feet of 
plank was covered with ice crystals from the 
moisture of the condensing steam that had spat- 
tered there and frozen in the cold December 
air. 

But Tracy's courage was plussed by that sense 



34 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

of responsibility that all railroad men possess. 
Never once did he think of his own safety. His 
thoughts were all for the lives that were in those 
snug coaches and sleepers behind him, all bliss- 
fully unconcious of their peril. 

Tracy crept forward slowly, grimly, despite 
the numbing cold that had driven the blood from 
his face and fingers; despite the swaying of the 
big steel giant that now, without the restraint of 
human control, seemed to Tracy to be bent on 
running away — running amuck and wrecking 
itself and the cars it carried on some perilous 
grade or at some dangerous crossing. 

Inch by inch the fireman moved forward. His 
progress was slow — all too painfully slow for 
him, for into his brain were crowding a thousand 
terrible thoughts of curves and crossings ahead, 
of open switches, perhaps, and towns where 
speed must be controlled. 

He was half-way across that perilous space — 
half-way to the cab, where he could see distinctly 
now the pathetic figure of the unconscious Nixon 
lolling out of the cab window — when ahead 
loomed just the hideous situation he had con- 
jured. 



IN THE CAB 35 

Far up the track lie saw the ominous red light 
of an open switch while beyond it crawling 
slowly into a siding was a freight train, trying 
in its tortoise-like way to get out of the path 
of the flying passenger train. 

It was the midnight way-freight that always 
laid over in this siding to let the flying passenger 
train go by. Tracy recognized it and his heart 
sank. No. 8 had been booming along at such a 
terrific speed that it had overrun its schedule, and 
he knew now that, unless he could reach the throt- 
tle in a matter of seconds, his train would over- 
take the freight before it had drawn its full and 
cumbersome length onto the siding. 

There would be a rear-end collision and 

the Tracy muttered a prayer as he thought 

of the consequences. 

All caution thrown to the wind, the fireman 
worked his way along the narrow path at re- 
doubled speed. How he clung on he himself 
could not tell you. He only knew he must hurry, 
for every fraction of a second meant something 
now. 

At last, in safety, he reached the narrow door- 
way of the engineer's cab, and stepping through 



36 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILKOADS 

and over the body of Nixon lie reached for the 
throttle. A glance ahead made him gasp with 
horror. The ominous, red blinking eye of the 
switch seemed almost before him, while up the 
tracks he could see the glimmering lights Of the 
caboose directly in the path of No. 8. 

Desperately he shifted the throttle, and 
grasped the air brake lever. His hands moved 
with lightning swiftness but with precision. 
Then as the air hissed through the pipes he 
deluged the tracks with sand from the sand chest 
and breathed another prayer. 

Sparks flew from every brake-shoe, the engine 
lurched and its brakes shrieked as if in protest 
at being throttled down. The headway decreased 
swiftly but not swift enough to suit Tracy. 
Sliding and grinding along the rails the heavy 
train plunged on toward the switch light. 
Tracy watched with eyes bulging. Would it 
stop in time? Could a collision be avoided? He 
yanked again at the air, and threw down more 
sand. The brakes seemed suddenly to clutch on 
with renewed vigor, and with a clank and a rattle 
and a jolt that shook the whole vertebrae of cars, 
No. 8 came to a dead stop not twenty feet from 





The engineer is a very high type of railroad man. He 
must be, for to his care are entrusted human lives 
and millions of dollars in property 




The track walker is a trouble hunter, always searching 
for defects along the line. He walks a good many 
weary miles a day 



IN THE CAB 37 

the open switch and the caboose of the way- 
freight that was just crossing onto the siding. 

" Did it, by George ! " was all that Tracy said, 
then solicitously he turned to Nixon. 

******* 

It was the engineer from the locomotive of the 

way-freight who finished the run to W 

while Nixon, suffering from a fractured skull 
from a stone that dropped from a grade crossing 
bridge through the cab window, was left at the 
hospital in Blue Lake. 

That heroic achievement was " all in a day's 
work " for Tracy, and he hardly ever mentioned 
the episode to his friends in the roundhouse. 
To be sure he was made an engineer soon after- 
ward and perhaps his heroic action had a great 
deal to do with his quick promotion, but the fact 
remains that he had accepted the perils of the 
situation as part of his duty, and after the cli- 
max was passed he felt quite sure that his life 
as a railroad man was really a humdrum exist- 
ence after all. 

The way up to a position in the cab of a loco- 
motive, which to us all seems to be the most in- 
teresting position one could possibly hold in rail- 



38 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILBOADS 

roading, is long and tedious and crowded with 
hard work, uncertain hours and serious respon- 
sibilities. 

Jim Tracy attained those heights while still a 
young man, yet he had been railroading nearly 
ten years before he finally got his hands on the 
throttle of his own engine. 

Let us, for an example, trace his progress from 
the time he first discovered that the only way he 
could be thoroughly happy through life was to 
be in the service of a railroad. 

He was a boy of eighteen then, just out of high 
school. For several years he had been hearing 
the call of the railroad. From the windows of 
his school he could look out across the fields to 
the highways of steel that reached out across 
the country leading to distant points ; places that 
he longed to visit. 

Most of his leisure time he spent at the train 
station, absorbing railroad romance, listening to 
the clatter of the Morse keys, and making friends 
with the trainmen who periodically put in their 
appearance at the long freight shed across the 
track while their trains dropped off or took on 
cars. 



IN THE CAB 39 

At eighteen, having graduated from high 
school, he heeded the call and taking a train to 

S , the terminal, he found his way to the 

employment office. He underwent a close scru- 
tiny there, for the men who hire railroad em- 
ployees are most careful of the human timber 
they pick to build into their road. 

But Tracy had a clear eye that told of a clean, 
quick thinking mind within. He had a smile, 
too, and his fingers were free from that smudgy 
yellow that tells of cigarettes. Tracy passed 
inspection with flying colors and was told to 
report to the foreman of the roundhouse. 

"Roundhouse," that was a magic name to 
Tracy. He had seen one only at a distance and 
how he yearned to have a peep inside! Would 
he report? At double quick and in a real hurry. 

Armed with the card that told inquisitive 
people that he was now an employee of the road, 
employee No. 5787, Tracy left the office in the 
terminal building, and with new blue jumper and 
overalls rolled in a bundle under his arm and a 
sandwich or two in his pocket by way of lunch, 
he found his way into the busy terminal railroad 
yards. 



40 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADS 

For a few minutes the big and extremely busy 
yard almost awed this boy from the sleepy coun- 
try village. But Tracy gradually mastered a 
feeling akin to panic that the bigness of the yard 
had caused, and, standing on an island of safety 
between the tracks, he decided to have a good 
look about him and take in all the details of 
this huge railroad plant. 

His eye swept the busy expanse of tracks (he 
learned later that there were nearly 150 miles of 
trackage in the yard with several hundred 
switches) with the endless procession of cars, its 
snorting engines, and myriad of gaunt sema- 
phore signals. 

Into the train shed were backing and drill- 
ing passenger and Pullman coaches while to his 
right near the long freight houses, he noted the 
fact that all the activities seemed to be with the 
constantly drilling freight cars. Here, he learned 
later, the freight cars were being sorted accord- 
ing to their destinations and made up into trains, 
some for the south, some for the north and some 
for transcontinental shipment. It was a busy 
scene, indeed, and for a time it held him spell- 
bound. 



m THE CAB 41 

But soon Ms roving eyes picked out the sooty, 
grimy looking roundhouse, with the glowing, 
steaming ash-pits hard by. There were strings 
of inactive giants clustered about the place, some 
being wiped and polished, some having fires 
drawn and fire boxes flushed out with hoses, 
some proceeding in a leisurely way to their stalls 
in the big round stable, to rest after a long run, 
some just emerging from the roundhouse, fires 
built, exhausts hissing and plumes of smoke ris- 
ing gracefully from their stacks. They were 
waiting for the master hand at the throttle to 
guide them to the waiting trains to be started on 
some overland journey. 

It was while he watched this activity that 
Tracy got the real thrill of railroading and he 
knew then that never could he be happy until he 
could grip the throttle of his own engine. He 
little dreamed then that he would acquire his 
engine in the spectacular way he did. 

His nerves were all atingle with anticipation, 
and it was with eager tread that he picked his 
way across the intricacy of tracks toward the 
roundhouse. 

He found the foreman of engines in his little, 



42 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

booth-like office against the wall of the round- 
house. He was a gray-haired, keen-eyed veteran 
of the road, and when Tracy presented his em- 
ployment credentials he felt very nervous and 
he had to gulp down a lump in his throat before 
he could speak clearly. 

" I — I — I've come from " he began. 

" Sure, I know. You're Tracy. Just got a 
call on the 'phone about you," said the foreman. 
Then he was silent again as he looked deep into 
the big brown eyes of the boy from the country 
village. 

" You'll do, I guess," he said succinctly. Then 
he added kindly, " Get into your jeans and I'll 
turn you over to O'Brien. He'll show you where 
to start." 

That was the beginning of Tracy's career as 
a railroad man. He was a humble messenger 
boy first, carrying orders and messages about the 
domains of the engine foreman, and routing out 
engineers and firemen to tell them of their runs. 
He was not long at this, however, and then he 
became one of the dozens of men who were 
tinkering about the big giants of the round- 
house. These men were called " hostlers " and 



W THE CAB 43 

wipers. He considered it strange that the name 
" hostler " should apply to these men who cared 
for and polished up the engines, but when he 
found that each engine had a "stall" in the 
roundhouse he quickly deduced that these names 
were strange survivals of the days before steam 
engines were known and railroads were run by 
horses. 

Tracy worked hard and willingly as an at- 
tendant to the engines and you may be sure that 
he examined and studied and asked questions 
about every mechanical part and contrivance of 
the huge mastodons of the line. He absorbed 
the real spirit of railroading there and the pleas- 
ure he got in listening to the gossip of the round- 
house and in the association with the men made 
him more than ever convinced that he had made 
no mistake in selecting railroading as his 
vocation. 

By asking questions and listening to the gossip 
of the roundhouse Tracy learned a host of things 
worth while and that later were to stand him in 
good stead. He took special pains to learn the 
meaning of the red lights of danger, the yellow 
lights of slow and cautious operating. He 



44 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILKOADS 

learned the meaning of the different positions of 
semaphore arms. He discovered that on some 
roads these indicated a system of blocks of sec- 
tions of tracks and that no two trains were per- 
mitted to be in the same section at the same time. 
He learned the meaning of switch lamps, and 
how the one type of switch differed from another 
in that some were turned by hand while others 
were operated from switch towers at some dis- 
tant point, the operating being done by elec- 
tricity, compressed air or another form of hand 
levers which was fast passing out of existence. 
He committed to memory the train signals 
sounded by means of the locomotive which he 
mentally catalogued in this way. 

Short blast, stop apply brakes. Two long 
blasts, release brakes. Two short and three long 
blasts, flagman go back along the tracks with 
flags, torpedoes or caution lights to protect the 
rear and warn approaching trains that a train 
ahead is stalled. Five long blasts, flagman is 
called to return to train. Three long blasts, 
train in motion has parted. Three short blasts, 
standing train must back. Four short blasts, a 
call to conductor, trainman or switchman for 



IN THE CAB , 45 

signals. Two short blasts, acknowledgment of 
signals. One long and two short blasts, calls 
attention to train following on same track. Two 
long and two short blasts, warning at high- 
way crossing. One extra long blast announces 
approach to station, junction or grade cross- 
ing. 

The code of hand signals between engineer 
and some one standing on or near the track puz- 
zled him for a long time until he mentally cata- 
logued them thus: hand or arm swung across 
the track, stop. Hand or arm raised and lowered 
vertically, proceed. Hand or arm swung verti- 
cally in circle across the track meant that a 
standing train should back or that a train in 
motion had parted. Hand or arm swung in a 
circle called for air brakes. Hand held at arm's 
length above head called for brakes to be re- 
leased. He also learned that any object waved 
violently by any person on or near the tracks 
was a stop signal. 

All these and hundreds of other interesting de- 
tails he learned and stored away in his memory 
for future use. He even rigged up a Morse 
key in his boarding-house bedroom, and after 



46 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

hours lie practiced sending on this, for lie 
was determined to become a first rate railroad 
man. 

He sought and created opportunities to climb 
into engine cabs and study the gauges and 
other mechanism there. He learned to operate 
the control levers, and after a time, usually 
nights, he got permission to start and stop the 
engines that were being shunted out of their 
stalls onto the big turntable in the center of 
the roundhouse, which provided means for turn- 
ing the hundred ton giants. 

Then one day came the longed-for opportunity. 
Somehow there was a shortage of men in the 
staff of the train-master. He needed two firemen 
and needed them badly. He communicated with 
the engine foreman for suggestions and the keen 
old boss of the roundhouse assured him that 
Tracy and another chap of Tracy's age were the 
brightest boys to be had. 

They were called before the train-master, who 
looked them over critically but with a good- 
humored smile on his face. 

"Both of you have the arms and shoulders 
of young giants. If you have the brains that 



IN THE CAB 47! 

should go with 'em to make a railroad man, 
you'll do." 

Enthusiastic Jim Tracy was elated. To be 
sure, he was assigned to the crew of a freight 
engine, for that is the bottom rung of the lad- 
der on most roads, and thereafter he fired for 
grim old Dave Carroll, on 'No. 1090, a freight 
engine of no mean standing in the roundhouse. 
Tracy knew 1090, for he had wiped and polished 
her bulging flanks many a time. 

It was as fireman of the freight hauler that 
he learned what really hard work was. To 
heave countless shovels of coal into the yawning 
maw of the fire box for hours in a stretch called 
for the back and shoulders of a Hercules and 
muscles and sinews of steel. 

It was hard work, but Tracy loved it and he 
was never happier than when he was in the sway- 
ing cab of the huge locomotive. 

He studied the engine as a cavalryman studies 
his horse. He knew just how much coal was 
needed to bring her steam gauge clicking up to 
eighty and a hundred pounds or better. He 
studied the line, too, and learned each grade and 
curve of the division, for he soon discovered that 



48 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

grades and curves demanded more power, and 
more power meant more steam, and more steam, 
steadier and hotter fires. 

Soon he was getting along famously and 1090 
did some exceptional work in hauling the clank- 
ing freights across the division. Grim Dave 
Carroll knew he had a real fireman "beside him, 
one who knew his job and knew it well. He 
warmed to the boy with real affection and told 
him frankly that he was good enough to go into 
the passenger service. 1 1 

Tracy got into the passenger service in due 
time. Gordon Nixon, the driver of 956, had been 
watching him for a long time and when his fire- 
man was given an engine, he asked to have Tracy 
made a member of his crew. 

Again the bright chap from the country, now a 
man in the twenties, found that he had more to 
learn. 

Firing a passenger locomotive required even 
more careful attention than his old job. But he 
bent to the work with a will, despite the fact that 
more than once by careful estimation he discov- 
ered that he shoveled between twelve and fifteen 
tons of coal into the fire box on a run. Still* 



IN THE CAB 49 

with all his hard work, he found time to study the 
line. Every bridge, every crossing, every siding, 
every switch, he added to his mental catalogue of 
grades and curves until gradually he began to 
know the division as well as a river pilot knows 
the stream he navigates. He learned more about 
the mechanism of the engine, too, and he ab- 
sorbed every scrap of knowledge he could gather, 
for he was preparing; — preparing for the time 
when he should be called, perhaps at the most 
unexpected moment, to assume command of the 
engine, nor did he guess how soon or through 
what circumstance this call would come. 



CHAPTER III 

WITH THE TRAIN CREW 

Jerry West was a veteran of the line. Also 
Jerry was a cripple, one of a big army of men 
who have sacrificed an arm or leg or even life in 
the service of a railroad, for railroading, al- 
though the lines to-day are operated under the 
most careful supervision and by the best engi- 
neering brains in the country, can scarcely be 
called a vocation to which no danger is attached. 
But, thanks to greater knowledge and experi- 
ences, a multiplicity of safety devices, the elim- 
ination of whiskey and all that goes with it, 
and the coming of a keener, brighter, and more 
intelligent lot of men into the service, the danger 
in railroading to-day has been reduced to almost 
nothing when compared with danger attending 
the work in the old days. 

Jerry West was a product of the old days. 

He was a brakeman, a member of a train crew 

thirty years ago, when that great invention, the 

50 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 51 

air brake, was young and not in universal use. 
Because Jerry West had the misfortune to be a 
product of those times when certain appliances 
that since have been perfected were in their 
crude form and surgery was not what it is to- 
day, he has gone about for three decades with 
but one arm, and has been a pensioner of the 
road, a gateman. Jerry lost his arm in the per- 
formance of his duty as a brakeman on a freight 
train. 

"Them were days when railroading was a 
rough, tough and nasty proposition," Jerry as- 
sured the writer, in telling his story. 

" Sure there was air brakes and they worked 
too ; but they was expensive, that they were, and 
it wasn't every road that had them, nor did 
every train on them what had them have them." 
(There was no questioning Jerry's nationality 
after that, for none but a true Irishman could 
have done a better job at manhandling the King's 
English.) 

"What did we use instead of air brakes? 
Why, hand brakes, of course. We had to jam a 
stick into the wheel for leverage and turn them 
that way. And a tough job it was. You notice 



52 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILROADS 

those wheels stickin' up on top of the freight cars 
even nowadays. Well, them's the hand brakes. 
In the old days all cars had 'em and when the 
engineer used to toot-toot for the hand brakes, 
you should see us boys a-humpin' ourselves 
scramblin' over the tops of the cars and jammin' 
'em on as fast as we could. Sometimes we got 
'em on and sometimes we didn't. It was one of 
the times we didn't that I lost me arm and lucky 
I was at that I didn't lose me life." 

" What? Tell you about it. Sure, I'm doin> 
that thing, ain't I? Give me a little time an' I 
get it out." Jerry looked up the tracks reflect- 
ively and was silent for several minutes. Evi- 
dently his memory was living once again in those 
old days of railroading, for presently he spoke. 

" Lots of 'em look back and call 'em ' the good 
ol' days,' but I can't see it their way. I'd call 
'em c the bad ol' days,' for bad they were. The 
good days are here now with lots more coming, 
for railroadin' is a lot easier and a lot safer now 
than it ever was in my day. And all together is 
a lot more interesting nowadays too. I remem- 
ber the morning we took out No. 121 way-freight, 
that was the old train I near got killed on. 



WITH THE TEAIN CEEW 53 

"It was a bitter morning in January. The 
thermometer was down low flirtin' with the zero 
mark an' it took a lot of will power to pull a 
fellow away from the stove in the * hack.' We 
were all bundled up in overcoats and ear muffs 
and mittens and the tops of the cars were just 
covered with ice, so a fellow had to be like a cat 
to hang on. That's the kind of weather that's 
hard on the train crew, let me tell you. 

"An' to make matters worse, a lot of the hand 
brakes were froze up tight an' we had to work 
like slaves to keep 'em loostened up. Of course, 
Number 121 was inspected before she left the 
yard and all the ice was chipped out of the brake 
gears, but that didn't keep it from formin' again 
while the train was on the run. In fact every 
drop of moisture or vapor from the condensing 
steam from the locomotive froze solid the minute 
it hit anything and the engine and forward 
freights looked like pictures you see of arctic 
exploration ships, only not quite so bad, perhaps. 

" We were makin' the run to Scranton and if 
you know anything about the country in those 
regions, you know that it's all one hill after 
another. That was the mountain division of the 



54 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADg 

line, and when a train isn't strainin' itself to 
climb one grade it's bavin' a bard time tryin' to 
get down another. We never got a level stretch 
on that line. 

" Well, this morning I'm telling you about, all 
was fine and dandy in spite of the cold and we 
were booming along, a-snorting up one grade and 
down another with occasional stops on a siding 
to let some of the flyers go by. 

Of course every time we pulled into a siding it 
meant work in the bitter cold for the train crew, 
for the head brakeman, who stays up in the cab 
with the engine crew, had to swing out and flop 
over the switch while the rest of us dug out of the 
6 hack ' and went climbin' along the slippery roofs 
of the cars pulling away at the brake wheels as 
soon as the train had slipped past the switch. 

" We'd made three sidings in the course of the 
morning and things looked pretty good for a 
quick neat run and then a ' swing ' for us in the 
bunk house or roundhouse or most any old place 
where it was warm and where there was sociable 
companionship. 

" But we had another siding to make about 
noon time to let the limited go by. That was 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 55 

where the trouble came, and after it was over 
there wasn't much in the way of warm comfort 
or companionship they could give me. Most of 
my pals in the crew figured I wasn't ever going 
to need much more except a long box and a hole 
in the ground and it looked like they was right 
for several weeks. You see it was this way. 

" We reached the siding all right and started 
to pull onto it slow and cautious like, for we had 
fifteen minutes to spare before the limited would 
go by. 

" Now although they try to build most sidings 
on a level stretch where there isn't any grade, 
they had to build this one where there was just 
a little slope because, as I said before, the coun- 
try was all hills and mountains. We got the 
whole train on the siding and was just pulling up 
so we would be as much off the grade as possible 
when clankety-clank, gurr-r-r-r went something 
and I looked up the line. At the same time the 
engine whistle whooped out three long blasts. 

" ' Good night, Murphy,' says I, for that meant 
that the train had parted. And I was on the 
hind end! Scared? I guess I was! A little 
bit 



56 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILEOADS 

" I looked back and I saw that the last eight 
or ten cars had split from the rest of the train, 
and was slowly but surely rolling back down the 
siding ! 

" It flashed through my head right there all 
the awful details of the situation. Those ten 
cars would roll down the siding faster and faster 
and smashing the switch break through and out 
onto the main line, runaways in every sense of 
the word, and able to play the dickens with 
everything that got in their way. It was 
down grade for three miles and the limited com- 
ing up. I could see those ten cars tearing down 
the track to meet the limited. I could see the 
crash that would follow and I guess I groaned 
when I thought of the wreck that would be piled 
up there on the main line, not to mention the 
bodies and like of that. Oh, boy, I was some 
scared. 

" What was I to do ! I thought quick, I did. 
I could save myself, of course, by jumping. 
Maybe I'd get a broken leg at the worst. But 
that thought didn't stick in my head long. My 
duty was to prevent the crash if I could. I knew 
I'd set the brakes on two of the ten cars. I could 



WITH THE TEAIN CEEW 57 

hear 'ein grinding. Now I figured if I could set 
the brakes on the other eight before the cars got 
to the stiffest part of the grade, perhaps I could 
bring the runaway to a standstill in time to flag 
the limited. 

" Believe me, as they say nowadays, Jerry West 
was some busy boy. I started legging it over 
the tops of those ice-covered cars mighty care- 
less of consequences, and jammin' my stick into 
the wheels a-wrenching and a-heaving with all 
the strength I had. Good night, but that was 
tough work. The bloomin' old brakes were stuck 
fast with ice and that made it about the hardest 
kind of a braking job a fellow wants to tackle. 

" I was working and sweating and praying to 
beat all get out and seconds seemed like minutes 
and minutes like hours. Honest, my heart was in 
my mouth and I was most afraid I'd bite a piece 
out of it if I wasn't careful. Then — 

u Crash, Bang, Wow. 

" I thought sure the limited had hit us, for the 
old freights just rose up off the tracks 'and 
spilled over, and went rolling down the embank- 
ment, busting up into a million splinters, and I 
was right in among the whole heap. 



58 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

" What had happened? Well, the brakeman 
who had flopped the switch had seen the train 
part. When he saw what had happened, he did 
the same kind of quick thinking I did and when 
he realized it was his move he moved fast. On 
the ground close by the track was a discarded 
brake shoe. He grabbed this and slammed it 
onto the rail of the siding and of course that de- 
railed the whole ten cars and piled 'em up in a 
pretty mess. He said he yelled for me to jump 
but I was so busy I never heard him. Anyhow 
he figured my life was only one where the limited 
carried a couple hundred, so he let her nicker and 
figured on looking me up in the wreckage. He 
found me all right and I was all stove up and un- 
conscious. They figured I was dead, but they put 
me on the limited after they got the line clear and 
carted me to the nearest city that had a hospital. 
When I woke up ten days later I had a broken 
leg, three ribs caved in and my left arm was so 
crushed they had to take it off. 

" But the point of it all is that if that freight 
had parted to-day instead of thirty years ago it 
wouldn't have moved an inch. When the air 
coupling breaks between cars now all the brakes 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 59 

go on with a bang and the cars can't move. So 
you see when a man talks to me about ' the good 
old days ' I tell him to go chase himself. 

"The good v days of railroading are here and 
now and the lot of brakemen of a train crew is 
much easier to-day than it was in the days when 
I worked at the job." 

There can be no questioning Jerry West's 
statement. Railroading has changed a great deal 
and is to-day far safer and far more interesting. 
But with this change in operation a change has 
taken place in the type of men who compose the 
train crews. The old type, the rough, rugged, 
and sometimes uncouth brakemen, trainmen and 
conductors have given way to clean, bright eyed, 
intelligent chaps, none the less courageous but 
far more ambitious than the men who manned 
the railroads forty years ago. 

But although modern inventions and new 
ideas in operating have made the work of the 
train crew less difficult, their task can hardly be 
considered one of ease and inaction even now. 
There is work to be done, abundance of it. 
There are still the cold and storms of winter to 
be faced from the tops of ice-covered cars, there 



60 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILKOADS 

are still hours of tedious work on the long hauls 
where a man must work the whole night through 
and then often work all day, too, before he gets 
his "swing," as a rest period between runs is 
called in the language of the railroaders. 

All trains, both passenger and freight, are in 
the charge of a conductor, and he is supported 
by a crew of brakemen, or traimnen as they are 
called in the passenger service. The conductor 
has the full responsibility of the train on his 
shoulders, and it is for him to see that everything 
goes right, from the safe conduct of the train to 
its destination to the clerical work that results 
from being in charge of forty or more cars loaded 
with thousands of dollars' worth of valuable 
freight destined to twenty different points on the 
line. 

Of course, certain of these responsibilities are 
delegated to his assistants. It is on them that 
the burden of the hard manual labor falls. Usu- 
ally there are two, sometimes three brakemen, 
to a crew of a freight train, and they have certain 
specified duties. One brakeman has charge of 
the forward end of the train, another the middle, 
and the third the rear end, and they are held 



The man on top of the freight car can be president of the 
road some day 




(c) Ewing Galloway 

Slow freight but mighty important when a coal famine 
threatens a city 



WITH THE TKAEST CKEW 61 

accountable, by the conductor, for their portion 
of the freights. It is necessary for them to range 
the narrow foot-path on the tops of the cars, leap- 
ing the two-foot spaces between cars, and in a 
measure maintain a sort of a patrol to see that 
nothing goes wrong, and, in the cases where hand 
brakes are still used, operate these. 

This is no mean responsibility, and patrolling 
the tops of a string of freight cars in motion is 
not without its danger. In the patrol the brake- 
men are always likely to meet the roughest and 
most desperate type of man in the " hobo " or 
" yegg " who makes the freight trains, illegally, 
of course, his special conveyance. 

Many a terrific battle has been staged atop of 
swaying freight cars between these denizens of 
the underworld and the men who are patrolling 
the tops of the trains, for the " hobo " is a vicious 
character, ready and willing to fight or to kill if 
he is in a tight corner. Indeed, there has been 
many a death charged Up to these encounters, for 
the trainmen are just as quick and eager to fight 
as the outlaw is, since theirs is the responsibility 
and they know that with " hobo " or " yegg " 
aboard the train there is always a chance of some 



62 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

of the freight being stolen, in which case they are 
held accountable. 

Alike they are held responsible for accidents 
to human beings and they know that if a crushed 
and mangled body is found between the rails 
after their train has passed they will be asked to 
explain, even though the body is that of a tramp. 
So, to avoid such gruesome consequences, they are 
quick to drive from the train any who are steal- 
ing rides. 

But there are other dangers in riding the tops 
of freight cars that the brakemen have to face. 
In truth, the mere being a-top the swaying, lurch- 
ing car when it is under full headway is hard 
enough. Then, to do this at night with a swing- 
ing lantern in one hand, and being forced every 
little while to jump from one moving car to 
another, is still harder. It is always necessary 
for brakemen to be on watch for a thump in the 
face from the " tickler," that gallows-like telltale 
of ropes that hangs over the tracks at frequent 
intervals to warn of the approach of a low bridge 
or tunnel. 

When a brakeman gets a slap in the face 
from this he knows that he must instantly 



WITH THE TEAIN CEEW 63 

throw himself flat on his stomach on the car roof 
or he will be brushed off the train and dashed to 
Kingdom Come by a steel girder or a masonry 
arch. Fortunately, such gruesome accidents 
rarely happen, for the men, dare-devils though 
some of them are, heed the warning of the tickler 
and take few chances, for they do not always 
know just how high the bridge or tunnel is. Some 
of these over-track constructions are built high 
enough to give full clearance to a man standing 
upright. These are survivors of the days when 
all freights were equipped with hand brakes and 
it was frequently necessary for men to stand 
upright on the cars to manipulate the brake 
wheels while going through tunnels or under 
bridges. 

But those that have been built within the last 
twenty years do not allow so much clearance. 
Indeed, some of them hardly allow three feet be- 
tween car roof and bridge girder. One can well 
understand, then, why a man needs to be flat on 
the car roof when passing under these. 

Tramps and " hobos " are not the only troubles 
that brakemen guard against in their patrol of 
the freight train. There is always the danger 



64 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

of a coupling breaking and the train separating 
or a break in the air connections between cars. 
To add to the present-day brakeman's troubles 
there are refrigerator cars and heated cars to be 
cared for and a host of other details. Then, too, 
when the train pulls in at a siding or lays over 
for any length of time, each brakeman is sup- 
posed to give his section of the train a thorough 
inspection to see that all is well with the me- 
chanical parts. 

And all this is outside of the work that is 
necessary at every stop that is made where the 
freight the train is carrying is due. To be sure, 
most freight train runs are made from one cen- 
tral point to another without breaking up the 
train. For instance, freight that is to be deliv- 
ered at points west of Buffalo is hauled as a 
solid train from New York to Buffalo, where it 
is split up, some of the cars for the farthest 
points west being attached to other solid trains, 
while the cars containing the freight for towns 
near at hand are coupled onto way-freights that 
run but a short distance from the central point, 
dropping off the cars at the towns they are con- 
signed to. 



WITH THE TRAEST CREW G5 

It is at such, times as these that the train crew 
is called upon for extra tiresome work, for it is 
up to them to break up the train, cut out or drop 
off the car or cars that are to be left, couple up 
the train again and get under way. 

Every member of a train crew must know in- 
timately a hundred details of railroading. Of 
course, he must know all the rules of the road 
regarding signals and one of the crew, usually 
the brakeman who has charge of the rear end of 
the train, must act as flagman. When the train 
is at a stop on the main line, or on tracks on 
which other trains are liable to be traveling, he 
must swing to the ground at the sound of the 
call for flagman from the whistle of the locomo- 
tive, and hurry back along the tracks a train's 
length or more and there post himself with a red 
flag in hand to warn any trains that might be 
following that they must stop to avoid a rear 
end collision with the freight train. 

He uses flags in the daytime to do his warn- 
ing, but at night a red light is necessary. Some- 
times, if the stop is only for a very short time, he 
will leave a red caution light sticking in the 
ground beside the tracks. This can be seen a 



66 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILEOADS 

long way at night or even through a thick fog, 
and while it burns approaching trains travel 
very cautiously. It is assumed that by the time 
the red fire is burned out the freight will be in 
motion again, so the engineer of an approaching 
train when he sees this red fire stick does not 
come to a full stop, but he does slow down his 
train until it almost creeps along for the next 
half mile until he is certain that the train that 
has left the burning light has gone on its way. 
Torpedoes are also used. Every flagman carries 
in his box of signals a number of light sticks and 
a half dozen or more torpedoes. These are made 
of a hollow disk filled with powder and fulminate 
of mercury and they are clamped onto the rails 
by means of two strips of lead that bend under 
the flange of the rail and hold the torpedo in 
place. When a flagman goes out from a train 
that is going to be delayed only a short time, he 
promptly clamps two of these torpedoes on the 
rails at intervals of a raiPs length and returns 
to his train. When the train following runs over 
these torpedoes two quick reports are sounded 
that can be heard above the clank and rumble 
of the train, and the engineer promptly slows 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 67 

down and feels his way along until he sees the 
stalled train or until he feels certain that it has 
gone on its way. 

All of this flag and signal work is usually done 
by the brakeman at the rear end of the train. 
But the brakeman who guards the forward end, 
and has his headquarters in the locomotive cab, 
also has his special duties, for it is his job to 
swing down from the cab each time a siding is to 
be made, and run ahead and unlock and 
throw over the switch. There he waits until the 
train has passed over the switch point and onto 
the siding, when he throws the switch back into 
position and locks it again. 

Thus both front and rear brakemen have defi- 
nite duties, each of which requires that the 
brakeman be careful and alert, for if the man 
protecting the rear of the train is careless a 
collision is likely to result in which lives and 
property are lost, while if the brakeman who 
handles the switch is thoughtless and does not 
set the switch back in its proper position and 
lock it, the next train may be derailed and a seri- 
ous wreck occur, all of which indicates quite 
clearly that a railroad man must have his wits 



68 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILBOADS 

about Mm and must always realize his responsi- 
bilities no matter how humble his position might 
be. 

But what of the conductor? 

It would seem that with the train crew doing 
all this work and the engineer and fireman tak- 
ing care of the motive power, but little remains 
for the conductor. That official, however, has 
all the work that he can attend to and usually 
a lot more. First of all, because he is fully re- 
sponsible for the train, he must see that his 
brakemen do their work properly. He must see 
that the forward brakeman attends to the switch- 
ing properly, he must be certain that they carry 
on their inspections, and he must take a hand 
in their clashes with " yeggs " and " hobos " too. 
So the conductor is found walking the tops of 
the swaying freights too occasionally, and at 
every siding he is out with his lantern looking 
things over. 

Between times he is to be found in the caboose, 
or " hack," as railroad men call the queer boat- 
shaped car on the rear of each freight train. 
Here at his desk, for he has a sort of an office in 
the caboose, he attends to all the clerical details 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 69 

of the train. He handles all the way bills in- 
volved in the shipment of the thousands of dol- 
lars in merchandise in his cars, and he alone is 
responsible for caring for these and all the de- 
tails that they involve. In addition to this he is 
the one who receives all the train orders from 
the train dispatcher in the terminal, and conse- 
quently it is on him that the responsibility of 
seeing that the orders on these flimsy yellow 
typewritten sheets that he receives at the begin- 
ning of the run are carried out. One may tell 
him that train number so-and-so will lay 
over at such and such a point to let his train 
through, another may say that he is to hold his 
train on a specified siding to permit train num- 
ber whatever-it-is pass and so on. All of these 
must be obeyed to the dot and he must see that 
crew and engineer are properly informed and 
that the orders are carefully carried out. 

His caboose is an interesting car from several 
points of view. Besides being the office of the 
conductor it is also the home of the crew. To 
be sure, it is a rough and crude sort of a home 
in many respects, but in other ways it is homey 
and cheerful, especially on a bleak winter night 



70 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

when the wind is howling a gale outside and the 
snow is drifting and blowing up the tracks. 

Inside, the caboose is arranged with four 
bunks on either side, and these, covered with 
gray army blankets, are mighty snug and com- 
fortable beds. Then, of course, in winter there 
is a stove in some; others, of a more modern 
build, are heated with coils of steam pipes kept 
hot by steam from the engine. In the center of 
the car, especially those of the old type, is a pyra- 
mid of steps ending in seats up in the cupola. 
These seats are arranged so that the men can sit 
up there under that peculiar sort of a skylight 
and look the full length of the train without 
obstruction and in that way keep a watchful eye 
on things at all times. In the more modern ca- 
booses this pyramid has given way to an iron 
ladder which reaches up to the seats in the 
cupola. 

The equipment of the average caboose is 
mighty interesting, because there are hoarded all 
sorts of emergency tools, such as axes, crowbars, 
ropes and tackle and numerous other odds and 
ends that sometimes are not in demand from one 
year's end to another, but when they are needed 



WITH THE TEAIN CEEW 71 

they are needed badly. There are locks here, 
too, for the train crew and an emergency first 
aid kit. Usually too there can be found a col- 
lection of pots and pans and coffee kettles, for 
when the train crew is called upon to make this 
snug little car their home for any length of time, 
you can be sure that they make themselves per- 
fectly at home in every way and cook a snack 
or two for themselves to go along with the con- 
tents of their lunch pails. And the writer knows 
from experience that some of these trainmen are 
accomplished cooks, for some of the " western " 
sandwiches, or concoctions of chopped meat and 
onions, or some of the " mulligan " he has tasted 
that has been turned out by a brakeman cook 
on a long run, has been well worth sam- 
pling. 

There are good times to be had in the " hack " 
of a freight train, for always railroad men are 
good company. Fancy sitting on one of the 
bunks with two or three trainmen as compan- 
ions and listening to the " yarns " they spin. It 
is bully. Then, some one of them tunes up a 
harmonica that he has dug up from the bottom 
of his locker, and a rich, rollicking concert 



72 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILBOADS 

blends with the clanking cadence of the train, 
and the visitor settles down on the bunk and be- 
gins to think that if he had his life to live over 
again he would choose to share it with the fine, 
strong, clean-eyed huskies who compose a freight 
train crew. 

As with the engineers and firemen, promotion 
is made from the freight service to the passenger 
service with the men of the train crews, and 
sooner or later these good-natured, hard-working, 
rollicking young chaps of the caboose, if they 
have ambition, as most railroad men have, are 
given a chance in the passenger service. They 
are no longer brakemen when once they don the 
blue uniform of the passenger service. They be- 
come trainmen then. But their duties on the 
passenger trains are essentially the same except 
that they have more details added to their regu- 
lar routine. They must here see that the cars 
under their care are properly heated and venti- 
lated, they must show every attention and cour- 
tesy to the passengers, but they have full author- 
ity to act in the case of disorder in their cars, 
ejecting or even causing the arrest of rowdies or 
other type of objectionable people. 



WITH THE TRAIN CREW 73 

As in the freight service, the trainman is given 
a section of the train to take care of. One man 
works from the back forward, another has charge 
of the middle of the train and still another the 
forward end. As in the freight service, too, the 
rear trainman is also the flagman, protecting the 
rear end of the train whenever the occasion de- 
mands. 

The conductor in the passenger service has in- 
finitely more details to trouble him than when he 
was conductor of a freight train. The clerical 
work on a passenger train is very much more 
difficult, for it involves money and tickets and, if 
there are any errors, why the conductor must 
reimburse the company out of his own pocket. 

Of course, on a passenger train there is neces- 
sity for a much larger train crew than on a 
freight and there are, too, additional employees 
on these trains for which there is no need on 
freights, such as the baggageman, for instance, 
and the clerks in the express and mail service. 



CHAPTEE IV 

THE VIGILANCE OF THE STATION AGENT 

The station agent is an important personage 
no matter where his station may be located. In- 
deed the smaller the station and the town it 
serves, the more important is his work and the 
more he becomes a man of affairs in the com- 
munity. 

In many of the small western towns, and in 
fact small eastern towns as well, the station 
agent occupies a position next in importance 
to that of constable or postmaster. He has a 
position with a certain amount of authority and 
because of this the townspeople have a great deal 
of respect for him. But he is as a rule deserv- 
ing of this respect, for he is a man of good educa- 
tion, he has a good general knowledge of things 
that go on in the outside world and he has a good 
position with good wages, and he is the repre- 
sentative of a big and strong company. 

74 



THE STATION AGENT 75 

Next to the postmaster, lie comes in contact 
with a greater number of the townspeople than 
any one else. He has a wide circle of friends and 
he is in a position to do many services both for 
the community and the individual. In small 
towns he is the local telegraph operator and all 
the messages coming and going from town clear 
through him. He is in close touch with all that 
goes on in the town, for strangers coming in or 
going out must pass beneath his window. 
Freight and express packages of all values are 
left in his care and at many stations he is given 
the responsibility of money shipments for banks 
and for manufacturing plants or other industries 
in the town. 

Of course, such valuables are guarded with 
extreme care for, back of his personal responsi- 
bility, is the company's responsibility and the 
company's honor, all of which are sacred in the 
eyes of the station agent. Indeed, there are 
many thrilling tales told of the courage and 
bravery of station agents, who have sacrificed 
even life in the protection of property left in 
their care. 

Not the least thrilling of these stories is the 



76 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

one told about Fred Foster, agent at Cordele on 
a certain western road. 

Cordele was a small town, a tank town in the 
parlance of railroad and traveling men, for there 
was a watering tank beside the track kept filled 
by a windmill, from which engines drew water 
when necessary. The actual inhabitants of the 
town numbered about three hundred men and 
women, but there was a floating population, so to 
speak, of twice as many, for seven miles back of 
the town in the mountains were two rich silver 
mines and a smelting plant. All of the business 
of the mine was transacted in the town and all of 
the miners who came to the works or left it, left 
by way of the Cordele railroad station. The sta- 
tion was of reasonable importance on the line, 
too, since the mines were responsible for the com- 
ing and going of a great deal of freight as well as 
the " bohunk " passenger traffic, which is the 
name given to travelers of foreign extraction, 
especially the laboring class. 

There was another big reason, especially to 
Fred Foster's mind, why the station was impor- 
tant. Twice a month, on the thirtieth and the 
fourteenth, he received from the express mes- 



THE STATION AGENT 77 

senger of No. 6, the local passenger train up from 
Bawson City, a small but heavy safe, which he 
was ready to guard with his life, for it contained 
twenty thousand dollars in currency, the bi- 
monthly pay-roll of the two mines and the smelt- 
ing plant. 

Twenty thousand dollars! That was a big 
sum of money and Fred Foster considered anew 
his responsibilities each time he lugged the little 
safe, by means of a platform wagon, to the sta- 
tion, and stowed it away in his bigger safe until 
it was called for by Jeff Sturgess and his well 
armed assistant from the smelting plant. 

" Twenty thousand dollars. That's a goshaw- 
mighty lot of money," he would say to himself. 
" There's lots of men in these parts that would 
commit murder for less than that. Fred, my 
boy, you got to watch your step or some fine 
night some one is going to try and take that away 
from you like they did from poor old Dicky 
Crawford twelve years ago. Wish No. 6 got in 
here at twelve o'clock noon instead of six o'clock 
nights. Then Jeff Sturgess could get it out of 
my hands and up to the mine the same day. I'd 
get more sleep on the night of the thirtieth and 



78 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

the fourteenth of each month than I do now. I 
guess Minnie would be glad, too, because I know 
she worries over it." Minnie was Fred Foster's 
wife. They lived in quarters provided for them 
by the railroad on the floor above the station. 

As time went on Fred Foster never let down in 
the care with which he guarded that precious 
safe with its treasure in currency. Twelve years 
back, when the mine and smelters' pay-roll 
amounted to less than half its present value, one 
of Foster's predecessors, Dicky Crawford, had let 
down just a little in his vigilant guard of the 
money and the station was robbed. Dicky 
arrived on the scene just in time to stop two bul- 
lets that tried to get through the doorway at the 
same time he did, and after that there was a 
headstone with his name on it in the local 
cemetery. 

So Fred Foster never became careless about 
the pay chest. Indeed, he made it a point to 
have a great deal of work to be done on the 
nights of the thirtieth and the fourteenth of each 
month and as a rule he sat up in the office all 
night doing it, so that there was little chance of 
a robbery being attempted without his knowl* 



THE STATION AGENT ,79 

edge. Yet for all his vigilance he feared that 
some night some one was going to be tempted by 
the possibilities of a big haul and give him a lot 
of trouble. He tried to shake off this presenti- 
ment time and again, but it persisted. And then 
one night, the fears he had were realized. 

It was on the fourteenth of the month, a raw 
and rainy day that grew more ugly as night 
came on. Number 6 was late and it was dark 
and soggy outside when Foster trundled the sta- 
tion truck up beside the baggage car and helped 
the express messenger lift off the heavy safe. 
Foster waited only long enough to give what dis- 
patches he had to the conductor, then he made 
haste to trundle the truck down the short plat- 
form. 

Before the train had left the station he had 
lugged the little safe through the deserted 
waiting room into his own wicker-windowed 
office and stowed it away in the safe. Once more 
back at his desk and his telegraph instrument, he 
looked out upon the sodden world and watched 
the rear red lights of the train disappear down 
the tracks. Then he cleared her with a brief 
message clicked off to stations down the line. 



80 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

This done, lie locked the waiting room with 
great care, looked once again at the combination 
of the safe, then left his office, locking the door of 
this too and all the windows, before departing 
upstairs to his waiting supper. 

It was half-past seven when Foster came down 
again, and unlocking the door of the ticket office, 
went inside to his desk again. He did not 
bother to unlock the waiting room doors, for 
there were no more trains scheduled to stop at 
Cordele that night. 

Alone in his office he lighted his corn-cob pipe 
and sat there listening to the sporadic clicking of 
the telegraph instrument. He could hear No. 6 
being cleared far down the line, her automatic- 
ally deciphered messages from J. G. to K. C. 
about work to be done on the track at Oakland, 
he heard B. F. tell X. M. about a car of coal that 
was lost between Kelly's Corners and Newton, 
and so the chatter of the key went on. Some- 
times it was business up and down the line, some- 
times it was mere wire gossip between stations. 

By and by the key seemed to grow sleepy. 
There were longer intervals between its chatter 
and Foster knew that one after another the sta- 



THE STATION AGENT 81 

tions up and down the line were closing and the 
agents were going to bed. Fred envied them. 
Only the stations of the big towns would stay- 
open all night and the nearest to Cordele was 
Oakland, thirty miles away. 

The gradual diminishing of the gossip of the 
key began to make Foster feel lonely there in his 
little office. The station was quiet, dreadfully 
quiet. The ticking of the big station clock seemed 
very loud by comparison. Outside wind and rain 
swept the platform and tracks and beyond Foster 
could see only one or two dim street lights in the 
town. Every house was dark and silent, its 
occupants gone to bed. How Foster envied 
them ! There would be no bed for him that night 
and it was a long, long time until dawn. 

" Oh hum," he yawned, but his voice seemed so 
loud and strange in the silent station building 
that it made little chills run up and down his 
spine. 

" Shucks, I must be getting as nervous as a 
cat," he muttered to himself. And, a little bit 
disgusted at the way he felt, he threw himself 
into the mass of clerical work that was stacked 
up before him. 



82 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILBOADS 

But it was hard for him to concentrate his 
mind on what he was doing. Somehow it 
seemed to wander. 

" What on earth ails me to-night? " he mut- 
tered as he put down his pen and reached for his 
pipe. In doing so he looked up and his heart 
jumped, for he was almost certain that he saw a 
shadow flit across the shaft of light his lamp cast 
on the station platform. He stood up and peered 
out into the dark, but he could see nothing save 
the rain spattering down. 

" Blamed fool you," he upbraided himself as he 
sat down again. " Blamed fool. You are get- 
ting worse than a rabbit. What's the trouble? 
Liver out of order or have you been drinking too 
much coffee lately? You didn't see anything. 
That was just the wind blowing the rain in 
sheets. Come on, get to work and forget it." 

Again he tried valiantly to crowd disturbing 
premonitions out of his mind. But the harder 
he tried the more they persisted. Once he 
thought he heard footsteps on the station plat- 
form. They were guarded footsteps, at least so 
they seemed to him. Then he thought he heard 
the soft muffled rattle of the knob of the wait- 



THE STATION AGENT 83 

ing room door, as if some one was surreptitiously 
seeking to discover whether it was locked. It 
was terribly creepy. He tried to tell himself 
that it was all imagination, but somehow he knew 
better, somehow he felt certain that out there in 
the rain and the darkness some one was lurking 
about the station, slinking from window to 
window or door to door, trying to find some way 
of getting in. 

Chills raced up and down his spine. He began 
to feel the presence of that safe behind him, with 
the smaller safe inside and its precious contents 
of $20,000. He turned and looked at it almost 
accusingly. It was like a millstone about his 
neck. He wished heartily that it was not there. 
Then he could be abed and asleep. 

Just when his nerves were most unstrung he 
did see something that told him all too plainly 
that out there in the dark there were human 
wolves bent on breaking in and robbing him. 
Foster's heart began pumping hard. For a 
moment he was panic stricken, for, half turning 
his head, he looked out through the grill of the 
ticket window toward the window of the waiting 
room. He saw a hand traveling slowly around 



84 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILBOADS 

the edges of the window pane. Beyond it he 
thought he could dimly see an ugly face leering 
at him from the darkness. Instinctively he gave 
a start and his right hand slipped down under- 
neath the desk, where in a holster nailed to the 
table leg, but out of sight, he always kept his big 
six shooter. His hand grasped the holster and 
felt about gropingly for a moment. Then his 
whole body went limp with surprise and dis- 
appointment. The revolver was not in the hol- 
ster ! Some one had stolen it ! 

For a moment he was stunned. He could 
hardly realize the situation he was facing. His 
gun gone and the thieves forcing their way into 
the station. He glanced toward the window. 
A big hand was pressed flat against the pane, 
forcing it inward. He was certain that he saw 
the ugly face in the dark grin at him. It was a 
terrible grin. It made him realize how helpless 
he was. 

Then suddenly he gripped his shattered nerves 
and became master of himself. He could beat 
them. He would beat them. His hand flashed 
for the telegraph key and he began clicking with 
deliberate slowness. 



THE STATION AGENT 85 

" O. L.— O. L.— O. L.— " he called. He was 
calling Oakland, the nearest station at which he 
knew there was a night operator. 

Presently there came a break in the call and 
he closed the wire to hear Oakland's answer. 

" O. L. What — do — you — want — this — 
time — of — night? " came the query. 

" This — is — Cordele — " snapped back Fos- 
ter. " Thieves — are — forcing — their — way 
— into — the — station — . Twenty — thou- 
sand — dollars — here — . They've — stolen — 
my — gun — . Send — help — or — they " 

Came a crash of glass as the window was 
forced in. Foster closed the key and ducked out 
of sight below the ticket grill, but not before he 
had seen a big hand reach in and unlock the win- 
dow. He heard the lower sash raised upward on 
squeaky pulleys. Then he heard the thump of 
feet as first one man, then another, and still a 
third dropped to the floor inside. Three men 
against him. Foster gasped. Then reaching 
upward he put out the light in the ticket office 
and the rest of the station building. He did not 
mean to be a target for them through the ticket 
office window. 



86 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

" Cut that stuff Bo," growled one of the rob- 
bers in the darkness of the waiting room. " We 
got you now. You ain't got no gun because we 
pinched it this afternoon, so you ain't got a 
Chinaman's chance. Best open up the ticket 
office and let us in. We don't mean no harm to 
you if you're a good guy. We don't want no kill- 
in' 'lessen we haff to. See? " 

Foster saw and understood but he did not re- 
ply. He was too busy fumbling behind the big 
safe in the rear of the ticket office. Hidden be- 
hind this, magazine fully loaded, was a short 
barreled riot gun. It had been gathering dust 
back there ever since Dicky Crawford had been 
killed by station burglars. Foster was not sure 
that it would work, nor was he sure that the 
twelve-year-old ammunition would explode. But 
he realized that it was his only chance and he 
grasped at it eagerly. 

He found the old gun and drew it forth. 
Crouching behind the safe he tried the pump 
mechanism. It was so badly rusted that it re- 
quired all his strength to move it backward. He 
gave a mighty wrench and it gave way with a 
clatter, ejecting a shell onto the floor. 



THE STATION AGENT 87 

The sound of the gun caused the robbers to 
stop in their tramping about in the waiting room 
outside. 

" Hear that, Slippey? The bloke's got a gun 
at that," said one with a slight suggestion of con- 
cern in his voice. 

"Naw he hasn't. He's bluffing" replied 
Slippey. Then he shouted, "Hi you in there, 
we'll give you two minutes to open up." He 
kicked a heavy foot against the door of the ticket 
office and Foster heard the wood crack and 
splinter under the impact. 

For answer Foster aimed the riot gun at the 
door and pulled the trigger. There was a ter- 
rific roar and a blinding flash that lit up the close 
quarters of the ticket office and a charge of nine 
buckshot carried away the splintered panel of 
the door. 

Beyond from the waiting room came a yell and 
a volley of oaths. 

" Ugh, got me in t' wing. Take that." 

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" roared the forty- 
five out there in the darkness and three bullets 
ripped through the door and flattened themselves 
against the safe behind which Foster crouched. 



88 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILEOADS 

"Fight, will you?" came a coarse voice. 
"Well, well give you enough if that's what 
you're looking for," and another string of shots 
ripped out. 

Through the broken panel of the doorway Fos- 
ter saw the jets of flame from one of the six guns 
and he let another charge of buckshot fly in that 
direction. He was cool now, perfectly cool and 
collected. He knew that he had the best of the 
situation. The only way they could get him out 
from behind the safe was to Mil him and drag 
him out, and he could repel any assault of 
theirs — that is if his ammunition held out. 

Foster had not thought of that before. He 
suddenly realized that the magazine of the gun 
held but six shots and that was all the ammuni- 
tion he had on hand. He had spent two shells 
and pumped one good one out onto the floor. 
That meant he had just three shots left. Three 
shots and there were three men outside. He 
would have to make every shot count. 

He thought again of the one good shell he had 
pumped out of the gun before he fired it. He 
needed that, needed it badly. He began groping 
for it in the dark, reaching as far as he could 



THE STATION AGENT 89 

from the protection of the safe. But while he 
searched a sound came to his ears that made him 
shudder. It was the scraping of a heavy timber 
through the open window of the waiting room. 
In a moment he knew what was happening. The 
robbers, determined to get into the ticket office 
the quickest way possible, had brought in a 
heavy railroad tie. Doubtless they would use 
this as a battering ram against the all too flimsy 
ticket office door. He knew only too well how 
quickly the barrier would give way under the 
crushing impact of such a missile and his heart 
sank. He knew there was nothing left for him 
now but to stand up and as the door went down 
repel their rush with buckshot. If he could lay 
them low in three shots he would be saved, but 
if he failed — he knew what the end would be. 

In the waiting room he heard the scuffle of feet 
and the thumping of the heavy tie as the men 
gathered it into their arms. 

" Ready, Fargo. Right. Crash it down, then 
go in and clear him out. Can't waste any time 
now or some one will be here." 

Foster heard them start — heard the scuffle and 
tramp of heavy feet, a muttered curse or two, 



90 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

then a jarring, splintering crash. He jumped 
erect as the door splintered and crashed down. 
In the darkness he could see vague burly forms 
filling the doorway. He knew that ugly faces 
glared at him. Revolvers roared almost in his 
face. Then he cut loose. 

" Bang ! Bang ! " He paused an instant for 
the third shot. Something had happened to him. 
He felt very strange. A peculiar dizziness came 
over him. He could hardly hold the gun for the 
next shot — his last. He had been hit! He 
gritted his teeth and steadied himself. Then, as 
a big form hurled itself at him, he fired. 

The gun fell from his weakened fingers. He 
staggered, sagged back against the wall and tried 
by a mighty effort of his will power to keep from 
going unconscious» 

Then as he leaned there unsteadily he be- 
came conscious of a light that flooded the wait- 
ing room. There were other shots fired in quick 
succession. They ripped out with smashing vio- 
lence. Through half -shut eyes he could see two 
of the robbers rushing for the opened window. 
One went down, rolled over and lay still. The 
other gained the sill and was part way through 



THE STATION AGENT 91 

when another string of shots ripped out and with 
a groan he swayed, clutched vainly at the window 
jamb, then fell with a crash. 

For a moment absolute, deathlike quiet fell in 
the station. Then the fast sinking Foster beheld 
through the shattered doorway a figure in a 
white nightgown coming toward him, a lantern 
in one hand and a smoking revolver in the other. 
It was his wife. Minnie Foster, despite the dan- 
ger, had come down into the bullet-swept wait- 
ing room just in time to save the whole situation. 

Foster with a smile on his lips sank to the floor 
unconscious. 

• •*%¥** 

To be sure, not every station agent has the 
thrilling experience that Fred Foster had. In- 
deed, Foster is one out of thousands, and yet the 
list is all too long of the number of station agents 
who have given their lives to the service in en- 
counters such as this. Yeggs and tramps con- 
tinually have their eyes on the usually prosper- 
ous cash drawer of the country railroad station 
and such men have small regard for life or prop- 
erty. 

But a few months before these lines were 



92 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

written the station agent at West Point on the 
Hudson was shot and killed by yeggmen who 
robbed the station cash drawer. At West Point, 
within hearing distance of the army academy, 
almost under the nose of Federal authority, such 
an act was committed. It would seem from this 
that the average station agent has something to 
worry about. 

Yet the station agent takes his task in the same 
way that an engineer takes the job that is before 
him. Again it is "all in a day's work." But 
the day's work of the small town agent is likely 
to be far more than the work of so many hours. 
Indeed, it seems never ending in many instances, 
so many are his duties. 

The station agent of a small town must first 
of all be a thoroughly trained A No. 1 telegraph 
operator. This is essential, for the telegraph is 
the nerve system of the railroad on the smooth 
operation of which depends the safety of the en- 
tire line. Paralleling every set of railroad tracks 
is a telegraph line that touches every station and 
signal tower. The whole line is one long cir- 
cuit, so to speak, and by means of it headquarters 
and every station agent on the line can keep in 




Changing rails between trains means hard work for the 
section gang 





II kf 

Bit 


i -# '<i 


bs^s C9TI 


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The station agent is a man of many responsibilities 



THE STATION AGENT 93 

touch with every moving object on the rails. All 
important messages concerning train operations 
are sent over these wires and each station agent 
can read them and translate them into written 
messages. 

All orders to trains upon the line are sent 
and delivered by way of the telegraph and the 
station agent. A freight may leave the ter- 
minal yard with definite orders to go through 
to a given point before side tracking to permit 
a faster train to pass. When the freight is half 
way up the line it may be necessary to send a 
flying special, perhaps the wrecking train, to 
some point, and this special must have a clear 
track. Orders are flashed ahead by telegraph 
and are received by the station agent through 
whose station the freight will soon pass. He im- 
mediately flags the train and gives the conductor 
the order for a clear line, and the freight pulls 
in at the nearest siding or middle until the flying 
special goes by. 

Or again freight trains are often sent out with 
incomplete orders — that is, the conductors are 
told to report to certain stations for orders from 
the dispatcher's office as to what to do next. All 



94 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

these messages reach the men operating the 
trains by way of the telegraph instrument and 
the station agent; that is, unless it happens to 
be a line where the telegraph has been sup- 
planted by telephone, and all the dispatching is 
done over telephone wires. 

Thus we see that the station agent is a very 
important link between the operating manage- 
ment of the road and the men who actually 
operate the trains. Indeed the station agents 
on some lines are daily receiving messages over 
the busy railroad wires on which the safety of 
life and property depends. 

This in itself would indicate that the agent 
must be a man of high caliber. He must first of 
all have a quick ear and an accurate brain to be 
able to translate the dots and dashes- of the 
Morse code into intelligent messages. He must 
also have a full realization of the responsibilities 
of his position. 

But the telegraph instrument can only claim a 
portion of the station agent's time, for he has a 
host of other duties besides. He must take care 
of the sale of all tickets at his station, and for 
that reason he must have at his tongue's end the 



THE STATION AGENT 95 

variety of rates between his town and other 
points on the line. He must also know all the 
details of arranging for Pullman accommoda- 
tions, and of course he must know the road's 
train schedule to the dot. The many and varied 
details of the passenger service of his line must 
be as an open book to him. 

That is not all. Indeed, it is only a part of 
this varied knowledge of railroading. He must 
know, too, equally as much about the freight 
service of his line, for in a one-man station he 
is also freight agent, having all to do with the 
complicated work of figuring out freight rates 
and making out freight bills. 

Then, too, he is the baggageman at the same 
time, checking and accounting for all baggage, 
such as trunks, suit-cases, valises and packages 
of personal belongings that arrive or depart from 
his station. He is likely also to be the agent of 
the express company, transacting all its busi- 
ness along that part of the railroad. And if the 
town is small enough to require him to do all 
this, he is probably required also to be the local 
telegraph operator, sending and receiving mes- 
sages for the telegraph companies that, by ar- 



96 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

rangement with the railroads, send messages over 
the railroad wires. 

And there are many stations, too, where the 
agent having all this to attend to is given in ad- 
dition the job of local postmaster. The station 
agent is a man of many and varied occupations, 
and one wonders as he looks out from the window 
of a flying train at the station of some tiny and 
remote town how the station agent ever finds 
time to keep the little grass plot cut and trimmed 
so neatly and how he can afford to devote even a 
little of his day to the care of the pretty flower 
bed beside the station platform. 

Bat they manage somehow — manage because 
they are railroad men and made to manage just 
such affairs as these. To them operating details 
come naturally. They know by instinct, it seems, 
the workings of signals, the use of flags, the 
meaning of raised or lowered arms of a sema- 
phore, or the blasts of the locomotive whistle. 
They are railroad men and when that is said a 
lot is implied, for railroad men represent a class ; 
a type of men that stand head and shoulders 
above the average run of human beings. They 
are Americans of the one hundred per cent. 



THE STATION AGENT 97 

variety. They are of the same stock as the 
pioneers, the Indian fighters, the men who built 
the Republic and the men who 4,000,000 strong 
showed Europe and the whole world what 
America and the American people stand for. 



CHAPTEE V 

SECRET SERVICE STUFF 

There is a department of railroad operation 
about which very little is known to the outside 
world and even to railroad men themselves. 
Hardly anything is heard about this department 
save for occasional mention in the newspapers 
that some particularly bold " bad man," yegg, or 
tramp, or railroad hold-up man was finally ar- 
rested by Detective So-and-So of the detective 
bureau of such-and-such railroad. But for these 
occasional glimpses into the " inside " of the busi- 
ness the average individual would never guess 
that almost every one of the big railroads oper- 
ates a special secret service department or, as it is 
generally termed, detective bureau. 

These men are the railway police and their op- 
erations are as varied as those of the sleuths of 
the average city police force. These detective 
bureaus are composed of some of the best sleuths 
or secret service men in the country and the work 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 99 

they do is as clever as that of the well-known but 
fictitious character, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. 

Why does a railroad want to go to the trouble 
and expense of operating a detective bureau? 
How does the railroad benefit? You only have 
to use your imagination to figure that out. 
Here is a company with property extending over 
hundreds, yes thousands of miles of country. 
There is valuable property in every town on the 
line and there is valuable property moving up 
and down across the country every hour of every 
day and night. I refer to the rolling stock and 
equipment of the railroad alone, and the various 
buildings, offices, stations and baggage rooms, 
freight sheds, coal pockets, wharfs, grain eleva- 
tors and so on. 

In addition to this all of these buildings, cars, 
piers and what not, contain millions of dollars' 
worth of valuable property in the form of mer- 
chandise being shipped to all corners of the coun- 
try. And while this property is in the hands of 
the railroad for shipment the railroad is entirely 
responsible for it. If any part of a shipment is 
missing, no matter how trifling it is, the shipper 
or the one to whom it is consigned, or being 



100 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILROADS 

shipped, is bound to come down upon the rail- 
road for damages, and in the end the railroad has 
to pay the bill. 

It can be very easily understood that with so 
many millions of dollars' worth of goods on hand 
at all times and scattered so widely there is every 
opportunity for the railroads to lose a great deal 
by theft. Although the average railroad has a 
tremendously long list of employees, these men, 
efficient though they are, are just as widely scat- 
tered as the property. Under such circum- 
stances there are bound to be points on the system 
that are rather loosely guarded, and it is gen- 
erally at these places that thieves in general try 
their luck. 

There is one type or class of criminal who looks 
to the railroads almost entirely for loot. This 
class includes the tramp, hobo, or yeggman, all 
of the same criminal brand, but each a distinctive 
type. Not only these men look to the railroads 
for illegal transportation to any point they 
choose to go, but they mark railroad property 
as especially desirable and easily stolen. They 
will force their way into railroad storehouses, 
freight sheds, or ticket offices whenever the op- 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 101 

portunity presents itself and steal everything 
that they feel they can carry away without diffi- 
culty. They will force their way into loaded 
freight cars and appropriate anything in them 
that they feel in need of, whether it be a case of 
canned condensed milk or ham or slab of bacon. 

For years, ever since the Civil War, in fact, 
the tramps, hobos and yeggs have been an or- 
ganized menace to the railroads of this country. 
Old timers insist that before the Civil War this 
country knew no such denizens as these. They 
say that this country was in such a chaotic state 
immediately following the close of the war that 
thousands of soldiers returned to civil life to find 
that there was nothing for them to do in the way 
of work. They proceeded then to go to other 
towns, and being generally without funds they 
stole their transportation from the railroads by 
riding in empty cars, or on brake beams, trucks 
or between cars. They found their grub too by 
stealing from the railroads, or " plinging " it 
(begging it) from door to door in towns at which 
they stopped. 

This wandering life seemed to appeal to a 
tremendous lot of these former soldiers, rovers 



102 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

and dare-devils that they were, and gradually 
they stopped looking for occupations and pro- 
ceeded to live on their wits and the railroads. 
And thus was born an entirely new type of 
citizen, a disreputable type to be sure, and one 
that the railroads have had to reckon with eve? 
since. 

Gradually these tramps, as they were then 
termed, began to organize into a regular under- 
world fraternity, with a vernacular of their own, 
and cabalistic signs by means of which they com- 
municated with each other. They would chalk 
up those queer signs on fences, gate-posts, water 
tanks, box cars and even jail doors, and by their 
presence other members of the fraternity would 
know which houses in town could be "pan- 
handled " for a meal or which house had an ugly 
dog. They could tell whether certain towns 
were wide open so far as they were concerned, or 
whether the police of certain communities had 
an eye out for tramps and put them into the 
town lock-up readily. They had individual signs 
too and descriptive mames and the Chicago Kid 
could tell from certain chalk marks on a water 
tank along a railroad right-of-way whether his 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 103 

pal, Bull McCabe, had gone east or west and 
where he was headed for. 

They had rendezvous and camps too almost 
always hard by a railroad right-of-way. These 
rendezvous were usually in a woods where shacks 
or caves afforded them protection from the 
weather, and where frying pans, pails and cans 
were to be found snugly stored away in which 
they could make their " slum " and other descrip- 
tively named concoctions that they were accus- 
tomed to making, for these ex-soldiers of the 
Civil War were good cooks and all-around good 
campers as you may believe. 

And so the fraternity of tramps grew out of 
this group of wanderers, and others besides 
former Civil War soldiers were attracted to the 
life. Men with trades, such as printers, um- 
brella menders, tinsmiths, and even plumbers 
and mechanics joined their ranks. They became 
the hobos of a little later date, riding via " side 
door Pullman," the same being empty freight 
cars, from town to town or city to city, stopping 
off to do just enough work (when they were not 
successful at begging) to earn sufficient money 
to buy their meals for a few days. Then they 



104 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADg 

would move on " hoboing it " from coast to coast 
and from Canada to the Gulf. The writer is 
acquainted with one of these former hobos, a 
printer, who " hoboed " through every state in 
the Union, stopping at nearly every town and city 
of more than 5,000 population, but never remain- 
ing in the same place longer than two days. He 
was " on the road " six years. He is, fortunately, 
reformed and has since become the foreman of a 
large printing plant in a western city. 

Among these two classes of rovers, the tramp 
and the hobo, there developed a third type, the 
yeggman. They were the lawless, fearless, hu- 
man wolves of the clan, the worst feared of them 
all, for they stopped at nothing, not even killing, 
when it became necessary. 

The yeggs are the worst of all the denizens of 
the underworld, for they are not content to lead 
the careless irresponsible life of the tramp or 
the hobo. They are criminals at heart and they, 
more than the others, are responsible for the 
hold-ups on fast mail trains, the blowing of post- 
office and station safes, the wholesale thefts from 
freight sheds, storehouses and freight cars, and 
all the other crimes that occur on the railroads. 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 105 

All of them are expert makers of " soup n or 
nitro glycerine, which they develop from stick 
dynamite, and most of them carry weapons of 
one sort or another, usually automatic pistols, 
and a small kit of burglar tools. With this 
equipment, like wolves, they travel across the 
country, jimmying their way into freight sheds, 
or storehouses here, and the next night, miles 
away (having traveled via freight cars), they 
will blow the safe of a station ticket office or 
hold up a station agent while they appropriate 
the contents of his cash drawer. 

Many an honest, clean living, fearless railroad 
man has met death at the hands of these fellows, 
while protecting railroad property, and many a 
bloody fight has taken place along the railroad 
right-of-way, when a group of these yeggs come 
face to face with the fighters of the railroad 
detective squad. 

With such men abroad and preying on the rail- 
road, one can readily understand why all of the 
big systems of the country maintain a special 
squad of secret service men to guard property 
and round up these criminals whenever the op- 
portunity occurs. The yeggs and the railroad 



106 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

" Bulls," as the detectives are called, are sworn 
enemies and neither misses a chance to square 
accounts with each other, even welcoming gun 
play to even up matters. 

Shrewd and ingenious, and crafty to a high 
degree, the yeggman almost always meets his 
match in a railroad detective, for none but the 
keenest and quickest of men are employed by 
the railroads for this sort of work. Usually they 
are men with a broad knowledge of criminals in 
general and yeggmen in particular and for the 
most part they are recruited from among the 
experienced detectives of some of the big city 
police departments. 

But that does not always follow, for more than 
once big, broad-shouldered, fearless men of the 
line, real railroad men, are selected to join the 
detective force. Such men usually have an un- 
commonly good understanding of the ways and 
methods of railroad thieves, with a pretty broad 
knowledge of the yeggmen as individuals. They 
doubtless have come in contact with these bad 
men so frequently in their railroad work that 
they know Philadelphia Jack, or the Koco Kid, 
and the rest of them by sight; they know their 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 107j 

records as criminals too and they know their 
favorite hang-outs and their methods of operat- 
ing. It is these men then, with that background 
of knowledge, who make the best railroad detect- 
ives, for some of them are so familiar with ways 
and means of the yeggman world and know their 
language so thoroughly that it is not difficult for 
them to disguise themselves in old clothes and a 
week's growth of beard and join one of these 
groups of criminals any time. Indeed, if it were 
possible (which it is not) to secure some of the 
reports that are turned in to the chief of the 
railroad detectives, many a thrilling story could 
be had of the operations of some of these experi- 
enced "operatives." 

Some of these stories have come to the writer 
in fragments, as it were, and with just these few 
details it is not difficult to judge just how serious 
some of the situations are that these railroad 
detectives often find themselves in. There is the 
story told of one man, who, suspecting a certain 
pair of yeggmen of a particularly neat safe blow- 
ing job in one of the stations along the line, set 
out to get them. But they were a slick pair of 
yeggs, as he well knew, and when he started out 



108 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILROADS 

on the case lie told his chief that it might take 
him months to find the men and get the " drop " 
on them. 

He proceeded to become a member of the yegg- 
man's world by being a yegg himself and after 
weeks of " bumming " about the country in the 
company of first one yeggman and then another, 
he had the fortune, or misfortune, if you will, of 
running across his men one night in an empty 
freight car attached to a freight bound out of 
Chicago for some western city. 

But he was not alone with them in the freight 
car. Indeed this side door Pullman seemed to 
be a special excursion car, for there were no less 
than six yeggmen in it all traveling together. 

By the light of a stolen railroad lamp, on the 
floor of the car a card game started in which he 
joined with the rest of the yeggs. And it was 
some card game, from what the writer can learn. 
It began to get disorderly right off, the two yegg- 
men under suspicion by the detective being the 
chief aggressors. They proceeded to bulldoze 
the other players and act in general like the 
" bad men " that they were. They seemed to be 
particularly nasty to another pair of yeggs and 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 109 

the detective learned afterward that they " had 
it in " for these men for double-crossing them on 
a particular " job " that they had tried to " pull 
off" some time previous. One word led to an- 
other and suddenly, without a great many pre- 
liminaries, the two suspected thieves flashed their 
" gats " and a shooting began in the narrow con- 
fines of the freight car. But the other yeggs 
were as handy with their guns as were the first 
two, and they were on their feet almost as soon 
as their enemies. The first shot shattered the 
lantern and put it out and then the car was in 
darkness. 

You may be sure the detective and another 
" innocent bystander " scuttled for the nearest 
corners and flattened out on the floor, hopeful 
that the lead that presently began to fly would 
not come hissing in their direction. 

The shooting began immediately and for a few 
seconds stabs of light punctured the darkness 
everywhere, it seemed, and there were curses and 
groans and some lively scuttling about. 

Then, as suddenly as it began, the firing 
stopped. All of the gunmen were wounded, but 
apparently not seriously. They realized too that 



110 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADS 

banging away in the darkness was getting neither, 
side very far, and they proceeded to hunt each 
other out so that they could come to grips and 
make quick work of it. Softly and stealthily 
they began creeping around the darkened freight 
car feeling for their victims, and meanwhile the 
detective huddled close to the floor realized that 
at any moment one of them might stumble over 
him and, feeling him and not knowing who he 
was, put a bullet through him. He drew his 
gun too, determined to shoot first if he could. 

Presently a grunt came from the far corner of 
the car. In the other end a shot ripped out, 
aimed blindly at the corner from which the sound 
came. The flash brought an answering flash 
from the other end of the car and the fusillade 
was on again until all the automatics were 
emptied. Then the combatants were silent again 
as they softly filled their weapons and proceeded 
to search for each other. 

Five times these outbursts of firing took place 
in the car, and all the time the bullets were 
thumping about the detective, splintering the 
floor and the side walls on either hand. But 
finally the firing from one end of the car stopped 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 111 

entirely, nor did there come answering shots 
when an occasional flash ripped the darkness 
from the other end. It was evident to the de- 
tective and what combatants were left that one 
side had been put entirely out of the encounter. 

Silence reigned for ten, fifteen, twenty min- 
utes. Then from the blackness came a husky 
whisper. 

" Fargo." 

A groan answered. 

" Fargo." 

" Huh." 

" Did they get yuh? " 

A groan was the only response. 

" Fargo, did they git yuh? " came the husky 
voice again. 

"Yeh, got me hard. Guess I'm goin' t' 
croak," 

" Aw cut that. They got me, too. Twice. In 
the shoulder and hand. I ain't no cripple, though. 
Guess we've croaked 'em. Where are you? " 

Once more Fargo groaned by way of an an- 
swer. 

" Stay there, I'll find yuh," called the voice, 
and the detective knew by this time that the 



112 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

two men he was after had survived the fight, but 
he knew too that both were wounded. 

A moment later the white rays of a pocket 
batter lamp punctured the darkness. The de- 
tective knew that Fargo's pal was looking for 
him. The yegg staggered uncertainly across the 
swaying freight car in the direction from which 
Fargo's groans sounded. He found him and, 
leaning over, examined him. 

"They sure got you, pal," he said rather 
lugubriously as he searched Fargo for injuries. 

Fargo groaned. 

" Don't play the baby." 

Fargo muttered something ugly to him. 

" That sounds more like yuh." 

Again a groan answered him. 

The yeggman stood up and flashed the light 
about the car. In the far corner was a pathetic- 
ally huddled heap, while not far away sprawled 
face downward on the car floor was another 
silent form. Over near the door crouched an- 
other yeggman, wild-eyed with fear, and beyond 
was the detective sitting up now, and rolling a 
cigarette. 

" Youse guys come give me a hand," said the 



SECKET SERVICE STUFF 113 

yeggman aggressively as he waved his automatic 
about. The yeggman near the door got to his 
feet almost timidly. As for the detective, he 
finished rolling his cigarette, then got up and 
brushed off his clothes before he came over to- 
ward where Fargo lay. 

" You're a fresh guy, ain't you? " said Fargo's 
pal as he surveyed the detective. 

" What's it to you? " answered the detective, 
but with no show of aggressiveness. 

" Don't git lippy," snarled the yeggman, mak- 
ing a threatening gesture with his gun. " See 
them guys?" he motioned toward the two still 
forms. " That's what will happen to you if you 
ain't careful. Then I'll drop you out of the side 
door and under the wheels of the train. When 
they find you on the tracks to-morrow morning 
they'll think you're another Bo that's been hit by 
a train or dropped off some brake beam and been 
run over. Here, git busy, that's your job now. 
Pry open that side door and swing these two 
croaked guys off between the wheels. The fur- 
ther up the line we can leave them, the better it'll 
be fer all of us. Come on, git busy while this 
guy helps me with Fargo." 



114 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

The detective looked the yeggman over. He 
was of a mind to come to a show down with him 
then. But on second thought he realized that 
the yegg had his gun drawn and ready while he 
had discreetly put his away when the fighting 
stopped. Then, too, he was not quite sure how 
friendly the other yegg might be, and Fargo, 
though badly wounded, was still able to hold his 
pistol. No, the time was not ripe. Yet he 
loathed to have a hand in the nasty job the yegg- 
man had allotted to him. 

" No," he said. " Let me tend to Fargo with 
you. I know a little about first aid work." 

" A educated Bo, eh? " 

" Nope, was drafted in t' army. First aid guy 
there. Know a lot about it." 

" All right. Git busy. You guy " (he poked 
his gun at the other yegg), "jimmy open that 
side door and swing these stiffs down under the 
wheels. Get busy now. We don't want no wise 
railroad bulls trailing us fer this, see." 

The yegg proceeded to open the side door with 
alacrity while the detective, watching every move 
of the yegg with the gun, proceeded to dress 
Fargo's many wounds. In the course of his 



SECKET SERVICE STUFF 115 

work, he was careful to move Fargo's gun out of 
his reach, and then he watched the movements of 
the other yegg, who with his one good hand and 
his bandaged and only partly serviceable other 
hand, helped him. Presently the yeggman slipped 
his automatic into his pocket so that he could 
work the easier, and that was what the detective 
was watching for. 

Like a flash he jumped to his feet and whipped 
out his own gun, at the same time flashing a 
battery lamp too. 

"Now you Frisco Ed, up with those hands. 
That's the boy. Come over this way a step while 
I remove your gat." 

The yeggman put up his hands with the single 
exclamation, " Bulls ! " 

" Yep, one of those ' fresh railroad bulls ' you 
been talking of. Been after you and Fargo for 
weeks. Got you dead to rights now. You'll 
swing for this and so will Fargo if he lives. Step 
this way. Easy now, and keep the hands 
up." 

The yeggman came over to him and with his 
pistol pressed against the thief's ribs, the de- 
tective " frisked " his gun and battery lamp. 



116 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

" Now over in a corner there. That one. Sit 
down and be nice. I can shoot some." 

The yeggman obeyed with muttered impreca- 
tions. 

The detective gathered up Fargo's gun, who 
now was unconscious. 

" Hi, you other yegg, cut that. Leave the side 
door open and leave those stiffs alone. Git over 
in the corner too and sit down. Wait, come over 
here first and let me remove your gat. Hands 
up. That's it." 

But this yegg had no shooting irons. He was 
more a tramp than a yeggman, the detective could 
see that. He was not used to rough work like 
that that had taken place in the car that night. 
He obeyed the detective's command with fright- 
ened looks. 

"Need you for a witness anyhow," said the 
detective crisply, as he sat down in such a posi- 
tion that he could command a view of the whole 
car. 

And there he sat with the yeggman and tramp 
at the point of his pistol and the three dead men 
in the car (for Fargo passed out without regain- 
ing consciousness) for the rest of the night, and 
when dawn showed through the still open side 



SECRET SERVICE STUFF 117, 

door of the freight car, the long train of empties 
pulled into the freight yard of a big western city 
and shortly after the prisoners were in the hands 
of the local police and the detective, having made 
good on his job of finding Frisco Ed and Fargo 
the Frog, was calmly having breakfast in the 
railroad station lunch room while he scribbled 
out telegrams to his chief and wired to his wife 
to send him on some respectable clothing so that 
he could return home in a real Pullman, as a 
gentleman. 

But the experiences of this detective are not 
unusual in the life of a railroad detective. They 
face unbelievable situations sometimes, and more 
than once in the course of their work life or death 
depends on their quick wits and quick thinking, 
not to mention the quick right hand. 

The writer knows of one railroad detective who 
will wear a silver plate in his skull for the rest 
of his life as a result of an encounter with a 
yeggman in which he was felled and almost killed 
by a railroad spike that was hurled at him. And 
there is another one who belongs to the same 
force whose front teeth are missing and whose 
nose is flat and bridgeless as a result of a " free 
for all " with a pair of yeggmen. 



CHAPTER VI 

OPERATING THE ROAD 

The heart of a railroad, as well as the brains, 
are located in the dispatcher's office. Here the 
entire control of the operating end of the road 
is centered, and here if a mistake is made a 
catastrophe results. The dispatcher has his 
finger on everything that is moving on the road. 
He knows every minute, day or night, where 
every train — freight, passenger or work train is. 
He knows whether they are on time or behind 
schedule, and he knows within a few minutes 
after the train has finished its run every detail 
of the trip and what has occurred. He is re- 
sponsible for the entire operation of each train, 
so far as providing a clear road for it is con- 
cerned, and if he makes an error hundreds of 
lives and thousands of dollars are liable to be 
destroyed. 

From this it can be gathered that the position 
of dispatcher is a highly responsible One, as in- 
deed it is. Only picked men who have stood the 

118 



OPERATING THE ROAD 119 

test of emergencies, who have clear brains and 
who can think quickly and carry a hundred de- 
tails in their minds without getting one confused 
with the other, are selected to hold these posi- 
tions. 

At eleven o'clock at night, when there is a 
change of tricks and a new dispatcher comes on 
to relieve the one who has been at his desk since 
three o'clock in the afternoon, the road is run- 
ning smoothly. Every through passenger train 
is booming along on time, every long crawly 
freight train is moving over the darkened land- 
scape, with orders how to proceed and where to 
pull in on sidings. 

It looks like a comparatively quiet night and 
the relieved dispatcher pulls on his coat, says 
good night to the man who has slipped into 
his chair, jokes a moment or two with the rest 
of the dispatchers in the room, then goes out 
into the terminal and turns homeward. The 
relief operator slips into the chair, adjusts 
head-piece and mouth-piece (if 'phones are be- 
ing used) or turns the resonator box at the 
proper angle so that he can hear the constantly 
clicking Morse key while he glances over the big 



120 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

chart sheet on the desk before him that tells him 
the complete story of every train that has left 
the terminal that day. 

He notes with interest that No. 137 was five 
minutes late at Scarston. He sees that No. 317, 
a slow freight, is in the siding at Warton, the 
next station above, patiently waiting until No. 
137 shall pass her. Even while he is looking the 
sheet over a voice comes in on the wire. 
" N. X.? " it queries. " This is W. N.» 
" All right, W. N.," the dispatcher replies to 
the man in the tower at Warton, whose tower is 
known as W. N. 

u No. 137 under the bell. Three minutes late." 
The dispatcher translates this into the facts 
that the passenger train, No. 137, that he had 
noted was five minutes late at Scarston has made 
up two minutes between Scarston and Warton, 
where she is just coming into the station. " Un- 
der the bell" means that the crossing bell at 
Warton is ringing to warn vehicles that the train 
is approaching. The dispatcher knows that in a 
few minutes W. N. should call him up and tell 
him that No. 137 has cleared the station and the 
siding and that No. 317 has pulled out of the 



OPERATING THE ROAD 121 

siding and is proceeding again on the main line! 
on her necessarily slow way westward. 

Presently a voice conies in on the line again. 

"X. X. (the terminal call), this is W. X." 

"All right, W. N.," acknowledges the dis- 
patcher. 

" There's a nasty mess up here/' says the man 
in the TVarton tower, in a very deliberate, un- 
hurried voice, " Xo. 317 is wrecked. Split a 
switch going out onto the main line and eight 
freight cars are spread all over the right-of-way, 
all four tracks are blocked." 

All of which means that things have " busted 
wide open with a bang," to quote the dispatcher, 
and the chances are good for about &ve hours of 
terrific work and quick thinking. 

Does the dispatcher lose his nerve? Indeed 
not. If he did the chances are the whole rail- 
road system would be tied into a double bow knot 
that would take twenty-four hours to untangle 
with the chances of more and very serious wrecks 
occurring, resulting in a tremendous loss of life 
and thousands of dollars' worth of property. 

He keeps his head. He has to or things will 
go to smash in a jiffy. He knows that in the 



122 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

quickest possible time lie has to have that wreck 
cleared up, and while it is being done he can't 
let a wheel stop anywhere on the line. With 
lightning swiftness he proceeds to think himself 
out of the tangle. 

His first move is to send out a call for the 
wrecking train. This is done by his assistant or 
student dispatcher, who proceeds to get in touch 
with the wrecking boss. Meanwhile the dis- 
patcher secures for the wrecking train a clear 
track from the terminal to the wreck. This he 
does by flashing orders along the line to points 
where he knows certain trains are proceeding. 
A quick summary of the chart shows him that 
eight miles this side of Warton there is a short 
line that leaves the main line at an angle and 
reaches north for seventy miles, where it crosses 
another road's tracks. These tracks reach south- 
westward and ninety miles above Warton cross 
the main line again. 

He sees in this angle of tracks the possibilities 
of a big detour that will take the trains of his 
line around the wreck and put them onto his 
main line ninety miles above where the freight 
cars are piled up. 







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OPEKATING THE KOAD 123 

He immediately flashes orders to every train 
between the terminal and the short line to swing 
in on this line and proceed on the detour as di- 
rected. Those trains that are not near enough 
to the short line to reach it before the wrecking 
train goes through he orders to put in on certain 
sidings along the way until the wrecking train 
is cleared, after which they are to proceed on the 
detour. 

All this takes time, although the dispatcher 
is working with every bit of energy he has to ac- 
complish the task. And while he is doing this 
the wrecking train has cleared the terminal yard 
and is booming along up the main line at a fifty- 
mile-an-hour clip, for the dispatcher has re- 
minded the wrecking boss that the wreck is lo- 
cated in the path of all of the fast commutation 
trains and that by daylight these will be coming 
through on the main line and must have a clear 
track. In other words, between eleven-fifteen, 
when the wreck occurred, and five o'clock, the 
following morning, at least two of the four tracks 
of the main line must be cleared to let the com- 
mutation trains, twenty of them between five 
o'clock and nine, come through on time. These 



124 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

trains can't be a minute later or the " howl " 
that will be raised will be enough to make the 
" super " come storming down on everybody. 

Is the wreck cleared away? Of course it is. 
The road must be kept open and that must means 
exactly what it says and nothing less. 

That is only one type of scores of emergencies 
that come up every day in the life of a dispatcher. 
It illustrates only one of the reasons why he must 
know at every minute of every twenty-four hours 
why and where each wheel is turning on the line. 
It also serves to indicate how swiftly and accu- 
rately a dispatcher must think and why he 
can't afford to make a single error. Oh, 
yes, errors have been made by dispatchers. A 
story is told of one who let two fast 
passenger trains from opposite directions in 
on a single track at the same time. After 
he had done it he saw with horror the mistake 
he had made and he knew how terrible the con- 
sequences were going to be when those two trains 
out there in the mountains miles away crashed 
together. He knew there was no way of avert- 
ing the crash. Even then he did not get excited. 
He thought out the best thing to do under the cir- 



OPERATING THE ROAD 125 

cumstances. That was to order out a hospital 
train filled with doctors and nurses and the 
wrecking train to follow it. Both were ordered 
out, cleared and on the way to the point where 
the two trains would crash before the wreck had 
occurred. After that was finished the dispatcher 
turned his telegraph key over to his student for 
a few minutes, stepped out of the room and, plac- 
ing a revolver to his head, shot himself. He 
knew he could not live with it always on his con- 
science that a mistake of his had caused the 
tremendous wreck that did follow and the result- 
ing heavy toll of human lives. 

We can picture the dispatcher as a man who 
sits in an offl.ce with a number of strings in his 
hands ; each string is attached to a train that is 
moving over the landscape sometimes a hundred 
miles away. He knows, just as well as if he 
could see each train, exactly what they are do- 
ing. He, figuratively speaking, has a finger on 
each one of them and he moves them up and down 
the division in the best possible way to avoid 
trouble, to get them through the fastest, the most 
economically and to the best advantage of trav- 
elers and shippers of freight. 



126 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILKOADS 

The dispatcher's office is at the business or 
yard end of the division. Nearly all roads are 
divided up into sections called divisions, that in- 
clude a hundred or more miles of out and in 
bound track, with yard areas and all the mechan- 
ical equipment that goes with that section of the 
road. Usually a division includes the trackage 
reaching from one big city to another, with a 
division terminal and yards in each city. 

Along the tracks of the entire division, you 
know, wires parallel the right-of-way. These 
are both telegraph and telephone wires, and each 
one touches at every switch or signal tower along 
the line. On some roads they touch each station 
and the station agent functions instead of the 
tower men. 

The dispatcher sits in his office with either 
key before him or telephone set clamped to his 
head, with an open wire that extends from his 
office to the other end of the division. At every 
tower or station along the line another man sits 
in with key and resonator before him or tele- 
phone set clamped to his ear. These men in the 
towers are the eyes and ears of the dispatcher 
back in the office and it is through them, 



OPERATING THE ROAD 127 

through what they see or hear, that the dis- 
patcher keeps in touch with the trains on the 
division. 

Generally a division is split up into districts, 
or sections of between thirty and fifty miles of 
tracks, and each dispatcher is given one of these 
districts to care for. He has absolute control of 
everything moving east or west on his section and 
his responsibility lasts until the train is clear of 
his territory and is picked up by the dispatcher 
who controls the next section up or down the 
line. 

Usually two dispatchers sit opposite each 
other across a table and each has an assistant 
dispatcher, or student dispatcher, as they are 
called by the railroad men. They have a large 
sheet in front of them, on which appears a full 
history of the day's operation of every train on 
the road. For an instance, the sheet is made 
out with first the train's number appearing, as 
for example No. 9, which designates the train 
as No. 9 (on the out sheets the numbers are all 
odd and on the in sheets the numbers are all 
even) . In the next column on the blank appears 
the number of the engine that is hauling the 



128 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

train, as No. 786. In the next column is the 
name of the engineer. Following there are ten 
paralleling columns with the letters, " C. B., 
Ex., C. P. B.; 0. M. B., Pro., P. P. C. Mail; 
S. Fr't"; each of these groups of letters distin- 
guish a certain type of car, as for instance C, in 
the first column means passenger coaches, 0. M. 
B. in the fourth column means combination mail 
coach and baggage car, and Fr't in the last col- 
umn means freight cars. In some of these col- 
umns numbers appear opposite the number of 
the train, as for instance, 9 under 0. means that 
there are nine passenger coaches attached to the 
train, 1 under C. M. B. means that there is a 
combination mail and baggage car also with the 
train. The next column gives the name of the 
conductor. Thus the dispatcher knows that 
train No. 9, drawn by engine No. 786, of which 
Mr. Blank is engineer, has nine coaches. It is 
a mail train and it also carries baggage, and is 
in charge of conductor Mr. So-and-So. There 
are still more columns on the blank, a series of 
them extending to the right and at the head of 
each one strange letter combinations, such as 
RS ; HI ; ZY ; NO ; etc. These are the call names 



OPERATING THE ROAD 129 

of the various towers along the line past which 
the train will go and from which a man will be 
watching for her to pass. 

As she rushes by each of these points the man 
in the tower will report back to the dispatcher 
that she has passed or cleared his point and that 
she was running on time or, if late, behind time, 
and give the number of minutes. As each of the 
towers report on a train the dispatcher enters 
upon the blank her time. Thus he follows her 
on her run, checking her passing of each tower, 
and if at the end of the run she is late, there is a 
space on the blank labeled remarks, in which is 
entered the conductor's report and his reasons 
for being late. 

So it goes throughout the entire twenty-four 
hours. The dispatchers and students work in 
shifts of eight hours, the first shift reporting at 
seven o'clock in the morning and being relieved 
at three in the afternoon by men who work until 
eleven at night and then give over their chairs 
to men who come in and work until the seven 
o'clock men appear again. The same shifts pre- 
vail on the towers along the line and thus there 
are eyes on every train moving at all times. 



130 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

These dispatchers' sheets are made out with 
accurate care and every morning at eight o'clock 
their contents is made up into a report which is 
placed on the desk of every official of the road, 
so that these men can see what has transpired, 
and how well their railroad has operated during 
the past twenty-four hours. 

But it is hardly as simple as it might appear 
set down here. Those dispatchers' sheets in a 
few cryptic remarks may convey a story that will 
occupy columns in next morning's papers. There 
may be a big difference in time figures between 
two columns, which means that somewhere be- 
tween one tower and another something has hap- 
pened. 

One tower has reported the train clear while 
the next tower up the line has been looking 
down the track in vain for her to put in her ap- 
pearance. Presently he gets a telephone call 
from the outside somewhere. It is the conductor 
of the expected train two miles down the line 
telephoning him that the train has struck a 
spreaded rail and jumped the track. Cars are 
piled over the right-of-way and the line is 
blocked. A wrecking train is needed. 



OPERATING THE ROAD 131 

And so it goes. All sorts of trouble can hap- 
pen, after which all sorts of trouble happens for 
the operator, for with the road blocked he must 
take care to see that every other train he has 
running on the line does not run foul of the 
wreck, nor be slowed up or hampered any more 
than is necessary. At the same time he must 
see that the mess is cleared up as soon as pos- 
sible. 

But there are a thousand other details to a dis- 
patcher's job. Not only must he keep the line 
moving but he must be the medium through 
which all orders affecting individuals and trains 
are passed along the line. He must be a veri- 
table news bulletin concerning the condition of 
the line. 

There is a Special Order book maintained at 
the dispatcher's office into which are entered 
all special orders. These must be read and 
signed for by every conductor and engineer 
at the beginning of a run. This special order 
book contains everything of importance that 
a conductor or engineer should know about 
the condition of the line. As these special or- 
ders come in copies are made and posted at vari- 



132 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

ous points on the line where these Special Order 
Books are kept. A copy is promptly posted in 
each book, and the conductors and engineers are 
supposed to read them and sign their names on 
the opposite page, thus indicating that they have 
read the order and that they are familiar with 
the condition or matter the order speaks of. 

Before beginning a run the conductor may 
find in the order book the statement that a sec- 
tion gang is repairing tracks at such and such a 
point, that a mistake has been made in a new 
time table, that his train is required to make a 
new stop, that it is snowing at a certain point on 
the line, or raining, or there are high winds, or 
perhaps there has been a wash-out or a wreck 
that he must look out for. In that way, through 
this special order book the men on the line are 
kept in touch with every condition of affairs so 
that they have no excuse for a mistake. 

At the beginning of each run the conductors 
must report to the dispatcher's office for orders. 
These orders are read over carefully, and read to 
the members of the crew, who repeat them back 
to him to show that they have a clear understand- 
ing of them. 



OPERATING THE ROAD 133 

5t the end of each run the conductor's first 
duty is to make out a train slip giving a full 
report 'of the run and all excuses for lateness. 
These reports get back to the dispatcher's office, 
where they are carefully noted. 

The dispatchers also see to the ordering out 
of all special trains, such as extra sections of 
passenger trains or special freights; they ar- 
range for the engines from the master mechanic's 
department or roundhouse boss, they arrange 
with the callers for engine crew and train crew, 
they make up all special orders for the train and 
see that it gets out on time and has a clear track 
to the end of its run. 

Mention of the callers reveals a special little 
department closely associated with the dis- 
patcher's department that is highly interesting. 
The callers operate a telephone system all their 
own. Their responsibility is to call the train 
and engine crews and to this end they maintain 
a little telephone system, and a group of willing 
errand boys. 

In this department is listed the names, ad- 
dresses, and telephone numbers of all fire- 
men, engineers, brakemen, trainmen, and con- 



134 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILKOADS 

ductors working for the division. There iare 
men on duty day and night and the minute the 
dispatchers ask for a crew for a special train or 
engine the callers get busy with telephone or 
errand boy, routing men out of bed if needs be, 
to fill each crew. The callers have the respon- 
sibility entirely of furnishing men to do the work 
of the road and sometimes they are called upon 
to do some quick work in the way of manning 
trains in the middle of the night, especially the 
wrecking train that stands ready and waiting to 
be sent out upon the line at any hour, to clear 
up a mess that may be blocking the tracks. 

A variety of details come under the head of 
duties in the dispatchers' office. Such un- 
thought-of things as saving coal and fuel is part 
of their work. The cutting down of stops for 
trains is part of their work a that to the average 
person looks to be unimportant, but when it is 
considered that in fuel and wear and tear on 
equipment each stop and start of a train costs 
the company never less than five dollars and in 
the times of high costs as much as $9.60, it can 
readily be seen that the dispatchers are eager to 
eliminate all unnecessary stops. Then, in addi- 



OPERATING THE ROAD 135 

tion to other details, the dispatchers are sup- 
posed to render a full report of every incident, 
such as the breaking of a driving rod on an 
engine, the loss of a brake-shoe, a bent journal, a 
smashed freight car and things of a similar na- 
ture that may be reported by conductors or 
engineers. 

They must follow up each report with still 
other reports on the situation until the whole 
thing is explained and the incident finally 
closed. The work of the dispatchers is unend- 
ing, it seems, and when all things are considered 
the dispatchers' office can truly be said to be the 
heart and brains of the division. 

Over all the dispatchers, these men who work 
at the desks operating telegraph or telephone 
lines, whichever the case may be, is a chief dis- 
patcher, and he is held responsible for the entire 
department and all that goes on. He must, as 
you can readily see, be a man of remarkable 
capabilities, as accomplished as the superin- 
tendent himself. Indeed, many a chief dis- 
patcher steps up from his position to the office 
of executive of the division. 

"The dispatcher must be a live wire indi- 



136 THE BOYS' BOOK OP RAILROADS 

vidual," said a chief dispatcher to the writer. 
" He must have, besides the qualifications for the 
job, a pleasant disposition, a cool head and no 
nerves. He must never be a grouch or a pes- 
simist. The dispatching staff of a railroad is 
the heart of the line and if the men are full of 
pep the road moves. If the men are grouches 
the road stands still. They must have intelli- 
gence and drive but they can't be offensive. They 
must be real chums with the men on the line, 
willing to listen to the other fellow. A dis- 
patcher who growls over the telephone or snaps 
a conductor up at every turn soon makes the 
other men afraid of him. They don't want to 
call him on the 'phone, they don't want to have 
anything to do with him. They fight him in- 
stead, and where there's that sort of friction a 
road can't go ahead. In other words, a dis- 
patcher must be a ' regular fellow ' plus a keen 
brain, a quick ear, and intelligence, and the 
ability to think his way out of trouble in the 
shortest possible time." 

All dispatchers must be experienced telegraph 
operators. True, to-day the telephone is used 
to a great extent in dispatching trains, but the 



OPERATING THE ROAD 137 

telegraph is still maintained for emergencies and 
the ability to operate a key and read Morse code 
is the first requirement of a man who hopes to 
become a dispatcher. 

It is a long hard row to that responsible posi- 
tion, however, covering a period of from ten to 
fifteen years, depending somewhat of course on 
the capabilities of the candidate. A chap just 
out of high school could master telegraphy in a 
few months, but to become a really qualified ex- 
pert, of the type that dispatchers must be, he 
must spend at least a year and a half of hard 
practice work at the key, taking and sending all 
types of messages. 

After that he must get out upon the line, as a 
member of a train crew, perhaps. Here he must 
absorb all of the romance of railroading and 
learn everything that he can learn about the 
movement of trains and all that goes with this 
fascinating work. He can spend &ve years 
profitably with a train crew or in some other 
branch of railroading. 

Then if he has showed unusual brightness, has 
been studious, careful, and indicates that he has 
a sense of responsibility, he will one day be asked 



138 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

to report to the dispatcher's office. Here he be- 
comes a student dispatcher, or assistant to a dis- 
patcher. From five to eight years are required 
to learn all the details of this job, but meanwhile 
he has already attained and is taking care of a 
worth-while position. If he shows cool judg- 
ment, is not too nervous, can think quickly and 
has the pep and drive required, one day the man 
whom he is assisting will be moved up to the job 
of chief dispatcher and he will take the dis- 
patcher's chair and have a student of his own. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MAN IN THE TOWER 

Closely allied with the dispatcher's office and 
part of the force under the chief dispatcher of 
the terminal division of a railroad is the starter. 
He is an important personage, and a very ca- 
pable individual. He must be when one stops to 
consider his work. He is the man who sends 
each train away on time, and in a terminal where 
there are two hundred passenger trains going 
out upon the line every twenty-four hours, you 
can well imagine that there is keen work to be 
done. 

But those figures do not tell half the 

story. At most terminals there are a great many 

commuters' trains to be handled and this creates 

a strenuous rush hour between half -past five and 

seven o'clock each afternoon. At such times the 

starter is on the jump every minute and, watch 

in hand, he is sending trains away almost as fast 

139 



140 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

as they can clear the terminal yards. Indeed 
he often sends three away at once at the very 
climax of the rush period. 

To start the trains may not seem to be such a 
hard job, but when all the details of the starter's 
work is taken into consideration it is seen that 
the man who occupies that little bay-window- 
shaped balcony in a terminal train shed has got 
to be a keen, quick-thinking individual. 

The starter's tower, for it really is a tower, al- 
though it appears to be only a balcony in the 
terminal train shed, is equipped with a formi- 
dable looking board of push buttons, buzzers, 
drops and telephone plugs. Some of these con- 
nect with the tracks in the train shed, some with 
the gates, some with the ferry house and others 
with the switch and signal towers out in the 
train yard. All of these come into play in the 
single operation of starting a train. 

Let us step into the starter's balcony of the 
Erie Railroad terminal in Jersey City at a few 
minutes before six in the evening at the very 
height of the rush hour. This terminal, although 
among the smallest of the railroad terminals 
serving New York City, stands second in the 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 141 

number of commuters handled during each rush 
hour. 

Here we find the starter, a bright young 
chap in his early thirties, standing, watch in 
hand, before this big key board. Despite the 
rush and turmoil of crowding commuters in the 
station below him, despite the din and confusion 
of a hundred different types of noises always 
heard in a terminal, not the least of which is 
the chugging and snorting of locomotives, the 
rumble of baggage truck and the thumping of 
trunks and baggage being loaded, he stands there 
as cool and unruffled as if he were almost any- 
where else. But he is alert and as keen as a man 
can be, for there is something new happening out 
there in the train shed every minute and he is 
responsible for all that goes on that has anything 
to do with starting the trains. 

At the moment we enter there are three trains 
due to go out at once, three trains that should 
start at 5.52, for the Erie terminal not only 
serves the Erie main line but five branch lines, 
the Greenwood Lake, the Northern Railroad, the 
Susquehanna and Western, the New Jersey and 
New York, and the Newark Branch line, a short 



142 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

line that does a heavy commuting business. On 
three of these five branch lines trains are due to 
go out together, while a fourth will start out on 
the main line four minutes later. 

Three minutes before train time a buzzer an- 
nounces to the starter that the ferries serving 
these trains are in the slip and that the pas- 
sengers are streaming up the gangways toward 
the ferry terminal. The starter knows that three 
minutes is enough to unload the passengers from 
the ferry and load them aboard the trains. He 
knows then that he does not have to hold the 
train because of a ferry delay. But the terminal 
is also served by a subway by which just as many 
passengers reach the trains. This is the next 
point of interest that the starter must think of, 
as he notes the hands of his watch. 

Twenty seconds before the trains are to leave, 
by push buttons he announces in this subway 
station the fact that the train is ready to start. 
There is a different ring for each track and his 
hands slip hurriedly from one button to another 
flashing the call. At the same time he signals 
to the man in the main waiting room to give the 
"all out" call. 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 143 

Every one is on his toes now, for in twenty 
seconds the trains must be in motion, three of 
them, and not a minute can be lost in this rush 
hour jam, for every minute means that a much 
needed track is blocked and that thousands of 
anxious commuters are figuratively " piling up " 
waiting to be hauled to their homes. 

Twenty seconds is up! 

Again the starter's fingers hop from one push 
button to another. Down in the train shed green 
lights pop out giving the conductor his "All 
aboard " sign, gates slam, and the train begins 
to rumble out of the station. 

But while all this has been going on new trains 
have been backing into the shed and made up, 
word of each being flashed to the starter, other 
ferries have been coming in, preparatory signals 
must be flashed for other trains that will be ready 
to leave a few minutes later, and so on. So 
many are the details that it seems almost beyond 
the human brain to keep track of them all, yet 
everything must be done exactly at the right 
second, and with the utmost care. 

And that is not all. If a train is delayed in 
starting for any reason it is up to the starter to 



144 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILROADS 

record the delay and investigate it. If it is en- 
gine trouble, he must find out every detail and 
the reason for it, for he keeps a careful and ac- 
curate record of each train starting, in a book in 
front of him, and if he cannot put a cryptic "Ot." 
after the number of the train he has to write out 
a report of why the train is late in starting. 
And there are still other details. 

There is a report book in his office and each con- 
ductor must report there and sign the book to in- 
dicate that he is on time himself and ready to 
take his train out. There is also a special order 
book here in which all personal orders for the con- 
ductors are noted. A conductor on finding his 
name posted in the book asks the starter for his 
personal orders. It may be an order informing 
him that he can have a day off on Tuesday as he 
has requested or it may tell him that he is to have 
a special car attached to his train, or that there 
will be a group of prisoners for Elmira loaded 
aboard his train at a certain point on the line. 
All these special orders must come through the 
starter. 

Besides this each conductor, as you know, 
makes out a train slip before starting a 



THE MA3J IN THE TOWER 145 

run. This slip tells the number of the train, the 
number of the engine, the destination and similar 
details. These slips are dropped into a box as 
the train is about to leave the terminal and later 
they are gathered up and taken first to the 
starter, where, in a space calling for remarks he 
must note the reason for any delay in starting if 
there has been any, before the slips are passed 
on to the dispatcher's office, there to help the dis- 
patchers make out their train sheets. 

But if the work of the starter seems compli- 
cated and nerve wrecking, consider that of the 
man, or men rather, in the tower out in the 
yard — the terminal switch tower. 

All things considered, there is probably no 
other job in railroading that can compare to that 
of the tower director, in the demand it makes on 
his nervous energy. 

His work reduced to its simplest terms is 
this : — the terminal is equipped with ten tracks 
in the train shed onto which trains are 
backed to be loaded. These ten tracks all lead 
into the four tracks of the line, the whole layout 
resembling very much a big long-necked bottle, 
the tracks in the train shed being the bowl of the 



146 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

bottle and the four tracks leading out onto the 
main line the neck of the bottle. The director 
of the switch and signal tower must pour the 
traffic of the road in and out of the bottle's neck 
without causing a jam, or a minute's delay to the 
traffic, or worst of all a collision. And he must 
do it all by the manipulation of a hundred or 
more switches and twice as many semaphore sig- 
nal arms. 

With commutation trains rumbling in and out 
at the rate of one every few minutes, with emp- 
ties backing down to be made up into trains, with 
puffing switch engines chugging in and out and 
big mastodons of engines dragging in the impor- 
tant trains of the line, snorting and pawing for 
train shed space, all at the same time, it seems 
almost impossible that it can all be done, and 
done as it is in almost perfect safety. The man 
or men in the terminal tower seem almost super- 
human in their work. 

A visit to the terminal tower of a big railroad 
convinces one immediately that this is one of the 
most vital points of the whole railroad system. 
Inside the tower one gets the impression that 
here watchfulness and extreme care are used, for 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 147 

every order that crackles out from the tower di- 
rector is snapped up and repeated by the men at 
the battery of levers. Every movement is made 
swiftly but with- care and accuracy and every one 
seems at every moment to be " on his toes." 

The terminal tower is located where it com- 
mands a view of the four main tracks of the line 
and all the tracks in the train shed. There is a 
bay or balcony here, too, and in this the tower 
director and his assistant sit, the latter with a 
battery of push buttons, keys, drops and tele- 
phone plugs in front of him and a telautograph 
at his elbow. 

Behind the two executives is a huge boxlike 
affair that takes up the entire room and con- 
tains the delicate and complicated mechanism 
of the interlocking switch and signal sys- 
tem. All of the mechanism that is visible is a 
series of crank-like levers and blinking telltale 
lights. It is these levers, operated by three men 
who man the board, that accomplish the great 
work done in the tower. 

The switches and signals of this interlocking 
system are of the electric-pneumatic type. That 
is the switches are operated by air pressure that 



148 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILKOADS 

is controlled electrically from the tower. As 
these levers are moved electricity actuates the 
valves that control the air pressure at the switch, 
and by this pressure the switch is moved over or 
back as is necessary. 

In days gone by all this work was done by 
the strength of a man's arm rather than the 
force of compressed air (as was also true of 
hand brakes on cars before the coming of the 
present-day air brakes). In those times the 
terminal tower, in fact all towers, had quite a 
different appearance. Instead of the tiny levers, 
there were batteries of huge hand levers, and as 
a switch was moved a man used all his strength 
and braced his feet against the iron frame 
of the lever to help him in his effort. There 
are still many towers in which these great hand 
levers of the " Manual type," as they were called, 
are used, but fortunately they are fast giving way 
to the safer, swifter, and more accurate electric- 
pneumatic system. 

The rest of the tower equipment consists of a 
set of tiny semaphore signals set above the direct- 
or's head, but where he can see them without 
effort. One group of these tells him which of the 




An old type of switch tower where switches and signals 
are turned by hand 






Inside the Terminal Tower where electricity does every- 
thing except the thinking 



THE MA2T IN THE TOWER 149 

ten tracks in the train shed are clear and which 
are being used, while the other tells hiin the con- 
dition of the signals on his four main tracks and 
other points in the yard. 

Outside on a bridge across the tracks are the 
real semaphores that give the signals to the engi- 
neers. There are two signal arms to a track, one 
suspended downward from the bridge and 
slightly smaller than the upper one. This, in the 
slang of the railroader, is the " low ball " and 
means when its arm is dropped that he can pro- 
ceed with caution. The upper arm or "high 
ball " is the " all clear " signal, and when this 
drops the engineer knows that he has a clear 
track ahead. 

The normal position of both is at right 
angles to the post supporting them and this 
position means " danger." At night when they 
are set at normal they show a red light which 
also calls out " danger." When they are dropped 
they show a green light which tells the engineer 
that " all is clear." These semaphore arms with 
their lights are all moved by the movement of 
the levers in the tower. 

Such is the equipment of the terminal tower, 



150 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

and by means of it the tower director has control 
of every switch and signal leading in or out of the 
yard. From his balcony he has to create new 
pathways for trains moving in or out, nor can he 
make a single error, for that error might mean 
death to hundreds of commuters as well as the 
loss of a great deal of money to the road. 

Of course when all trains are running on 
schedule the tower director can in a measure 
plan his work. He knows that at certain times 
certain trains are to be made up and he knows 
which track they are to be made up on. Then 
too he knows that certain trains are due at cer- 
tain times and he can set his switches to throw 
them in on their accustomed tracks. But al- 
though all railroads have schedules and every 
effort is made to make them as inflexible as possi 
ble, emergencies are constantly arising that 
throw the tower man all out of his stride, so to 
speak, and he has to use all sorts of snap judg- 
ment and quick thinking to keep things moving 
properly. 

An accident out upon the line that might 
delay a train ten minutes on its run will 
bring it to the terminal just at the time when 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 151 

some other train is occupying the track it would 
have gone in on ten minutes before. It can't be 
left standing in the yard. It must be put some- 
where. The tower director has to find a place for 
it in the face of the scores of trains passing in 
and out on their own time. Meanwhile this de- 
layed train may be delaying others. Presently 
the tower man finds trains piling up on him. The 
yard is perilously near a jam that might tie it 
up for an hour. He can't let that happen. He 
must work in a perfect frenzy to get the mess 
cleared up. 

Of course he has some assistance in the flexi- 
bility of the four tracks that lead into the yard. 
Under normal operation these tracks are divided 
equally, two for outbound trains and two for 
inbound trains, but during rush hour he can con- 
vert one of the tracks to suit his purpose so that 
there are three tracks to dispose of his heaviest 
traffic. There may be three tracks carrying out 
the heavy evening traffic while the single re- 
maining track handles the lighter incoming 
traffic. 

But even with this his work is strenuous and 
nerve wrecking. At night for an instance, there 



152 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILEOADS 

are a thousand lights blinking at him out of the 
dark. He must know them all; some are train 
lights coming in, some are signal lights, some are 
train lights going out, but he cannot become con- 
fused by any of them. Or in winter when a 
heavy snow has blocked some of his switches or 
frozen them solid, he must handle his rush 
crowds even though switches are blocked or 
frozen and an army of men is out there in the 
yard trying frantically to dig them out and keep 
them in working order. 

Winter is hard on the tower director because 
it is then that he has all sorts of switch trouble. 
When a cold spell comes, or snow starts falling, 
men are assembled in the yards and given the 
job of keeping the switches open. Sometimes 
this is done with burning oil that keeps a fire 
blazing around the switch, melting snow and ice 
and keeping them sliding smoothly. Sometimes 
the plain old-fashioned pick and shovel are used, 
but they must be used carefully, for the mecha- 
nism of the interlocking electric-pneumatic 
switch is in a measure delicate ; so delicate that 
there is a rule for engineers that forbids them 
sanding the tracks in the vicinity of the switches 



THE MAK IN THE TOWER 153 

for fear that the sand may cripple the mecha- 
nism. 

The more progressive roads have installed 
in some yards electric heating units that during 
cold spells or snow-storms are kept glowing hot, 
thus preventing the switches from freezing. 

It can be well understood that the men who 
work in the terminal switch and signal tower are 
constantly under a terrific nervous strain which 
is liable to tell upon them physically too. They 
must have nerves of steel and they must be able 
to keep calm and collected under the most stress- 
ing conditions, and goodness knows situations in 
which an ordinary chap would get badly 
" rattled " occur far too often in their day's work. 

Like the operators in the dispatcher's office the 
men at the levers work in "tricks" of eight hours 
each, although their schedule is arranged a little 
differently than the one on which the operators 
work. 

They come to their task at six o'clock in the 
morning and quit at two in the afternoon, 
when they are relieved by another group of men 
who come into the tower at two and work until 
ten at night. Then there is a shift that comes 



154 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

on at ten to complete the twenty-four hours, for 
they work until relieved at six the next morning 
by the first group. But the men could not stand 
up under the strain of working eight hours 
steadily even in these shifts, so another group 
known as a " split trick " is provided for. These 
men come on at half-past seven each morning 
and work until eleven, when they " swing," in the 
language of the railroad men, until two o'clock 
in the afternoon, when they appear again and 
work until half -past six. These " split tricks " 
men come on just at the beginning of the morn- 
ing and evening rush hour when the strain is 
the greatest, and fresh for their work they carry 
on until the rush of trains in and out of the ter- 
minal is over with, when they rest until the next 
rush period. This eases up on the hard grind of 
things for all concerned. 

There is still another group of tower men who 
are known as "student lever men." They are 
subject to call as relief men at any time, day or 
night, taking the places of men who may be ill 
or away. They also fill in at towers when extra 
men are needed. 

The life of a student lever man is hard because 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 155 

of the irregularity and uncertainty of his hours. 
He may be called on for night work for several 
nights in succession, then called to fill in on day 
tricks for a week or more, only to be shifted to 
another trick after that. But then that is rail- 
roading and somehow that is part of the fun rail- 
road men find in the game. 

There is one more man attached to the tower 
director's staff and he is the expert electrician 
and all around mechanical man who must always 
be on hand to see that things are working 
smoothly from a mechanical standpoint. Of 
course he must know everything there is to be 
known about the electrical apparatus in the 
tower as well as the pneumatic devices and the 
switches in the yard. When things go wrong 
he is a busy man, for all his work is of the rush 
variety with a capital R. A slip in the mecha- 
nism is liable to smash the system in the whole 
yard and throw the operation of the line into 
chaos for the time being, so he must work fast 
and furiously while he works and he must work 
with care, nor can he leave a job with the work 
partly done, for this might mean that a train 
sent over the switch he has been working on 



156 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

would be derailed and wrecked and then the 
yard would be tied up seriously. 

The towers out upon the line are far different 
than the towers in the terminal. They are 
switch and signal towers, too, but they usually 
guard a single track junction or a cross over 
switch or the switch of a siding and these are 
only used at intervals during the day, so that 
there rarely are any tense moments in the lives of 
the men who watch the tracks from these points. 

However, on the roads where these towers are 
used as points for watching and clearing trains 
the man in the tower has a really great respon- 
sibility. Besides caring for the switches and 
the semaphore signals that help to guard these 
switches he is required to report on all train 
movements in the section of track that comes 
under his observation. As you already know he 
is connected by telephone and telegraph with the 
dispatcher's office at the terminal of the divi- 
sion and it is through him that the movements 
of both the outgoing and incoming trains are 
made known to the dispatcher. As each train 
passes the tower the man aloft takes note of it. 
From his schedule he knows the number of the 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 157 

train, or if it is an unscheduled freight train he 
identifies it by means of the number of the 
engine or by word previously sent out from the 
dispatcher's office. 

He knows, too, the make-up of the train, how 
many cars and of what type they are, and as 
the train passes under his tower window he 
makes note of the fact that the entire train 
is in order. In the old days before the invention 
of air brakes it was possible, especially in the 
case of big freight trains, to have trains part. 
Some of the cars of the rear end would be left 
standing on the track while the engine and the 
forward cars would go blithely upon their way, 
not knowing anything about the cars that had 
been left behind, standing without motive power, 
on the rails somewhere back in the distance. 
Such accidents, though fortunately rare, were 
very serious in those days, for the cars left be- 
hind blocked the tracks and were an obstruction 
into which some oncoming train could plunge or 
at best they would block the tracks and keep 
them blocked until some form of motive power 
could be brought up to move them out of the way 
or push or pull them into some siding or finally 



158 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

move them to some destination where they could 
be hauled out of the line of traffic until they were 
picked up by a new freight train. 

If a train passing a tower is not intact the 
tower man does not clear it, but sounds a 
signal either by bell or whistle. At night, 
of course, it is difficult to count the cars as 
they go by and that is one of the reasons for the 
tail light on a train. The man in the tower at 
night will not clear a train until it has passed 
his point of vision and he finds that two red 
lights are burning on the rear. 

The lights (or flags in daytime) displayed by 
trains all have meanings to railroad men. For 
an instance all trains running under normal con- 
ditions are supposed to display two red lights (or 
flags) on their rear end. If a train is on a siding 
waiting for another train to pass it the lights 
displayed are green. A blue light (or flag) is 
displayed by a train that is being inspected for 
mechanical troubles. This signal is displayed 
so that the inspectors, who may be under a car, 
are protected. 'No train burning a blue light can 
be moved. 

Two white lights are burned on the loco- 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 159 

motive of an extra train on the line, and if 
a train is running in two sections green 
lights are burned ahead. Under normal condi- 
tions the locomotive displays only its headlight. 

Aside from watching out for trains and oc- 
casionally operating the switches and signals 
under his control the men in the towers out upon 
the line lead a lonesome life indeed. He always 
has the gossip of the wire to listen in on, of 
course, and if it happens that on his road the 
telephone is used for dispatching work he has 
the companionship of human voices up and down 
the line. 

But that is not the companionship he 
often craves. To be stuck out in a desert in a 
tower, miles from civilization, or to be isolated 
on some mountainside or in the center of a huge 
meadowy swamp is not the happiest sort of a 
situation, at least it would not appear so to the 
average man, but somehow the tower men are 
willing to take it as it comes — "all in a day's 
work," which after all is the philosophy of the 
railroad men. Some of them find real pleasure 
in their isolation despite its apparent drawbacks. 

Away from human companionship and human 



160 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILBOADS 

aid some of these tower men have queer adven- 
tures. More than one of them has been held up 
by desperate characters, tramps or yeggmen. 
Indeed only recently a story came to the writer's 
attention of an attempt on the part of some 
tramps to force their way into a tower station 
on a forlorn and deserted section of a certain 
line. The tower man fought them off as best he 
could and kept the door securely barred. They 
laid siege to his tower all night long, finally re- 
sorting to a bombardment of stones that broke 
every window in the tower. When morning 
came the place was indeed a sad sight and so was 
the operator. He was cut and bruised and well 
shaken up. 

While the stone bombardment was going 
on he reported the situation over the wire to 
division headquarters, but his tower was so 
remote that it was impossible to get help to him 
that night. However, the next evening a train 
stopped at the tower and let off a member of the 
road's police force (yes, railroads have an exten- 
sive police force and an excellent corps of detect- 
ives, too). The policeman had with him a shot- 
gun, the most effective weapon in the world for 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 161 

jobs of that sort, and when the tramps put in 
their appearance the next night, as they did, 
they went away again as fast as their legs could 
carry them. And they took with them, too, a 
goodly quantity of fine bird shot which was dis- 
tributed over their anatomy in such a way that 
they found difficulty in attending to all their 
wounds at one time. 

There is a story, too, of a tower man out in the 
Rockies who was besieged in his tower by a 
grizzly bear, and an ugly customer he proved to 
be. He climbed the tower stairs twice and tried 
to get through the windows at the tower man, 
against whom he seemed to have a particular 
grudge, and it was only by beating him on the end 
of his sensitive nose with an iron coal shovel that 
the man was able to drive the beast away. At 
that he did not go until he had practically 
wrecked the stairs leading to the tower, by tear- 
ing the rails out and smashing them to splinters. 

Some tower men in very remote sections, like 
the men in the lighthouse service, live at the 
tower or very handy to it, but the majority of 
them live in the nearest town and go out to the 
towers on the trains. They too work in shifts; 



162 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILBOADS 

in the busier towers their shifts correspond with 
the shifts of the dispatchers, but in the remote 
towers there are frequently a night and a day 
operator, each working twelve hours. 

The signal systems employed on these remote 
sections of a railroad are often quite different 
from the interlocking systems operated in the 
terminal tower. Usually the lines as they reach 
out into sparsely settled sections of the country 
are of the single track variety, trains bound in 
both directions using the same track. It can be 
easily understood that a very accurate signal 
system is needed to prevent two trains from oper- 
ating in opposite directions on the same section 
of tracks ; for that reason the " block " system is 
used. 

In this case the track is divided into " blocks " 
or sections varying from one to five miles in 
length. Each section is protected by a set of 
semaphore arms located on a post at the right of 
the tracks. There are two arms to each post and 
each arm tells its own story. These semaphores 
are operated electrically, the lines being con- 
nected up with the rails of the track. As a train 
passes a semaphore post and goes into a " block " 



THE MAN IN THE TOWER 163 

or section of track, both arms of the post at the 
beginning of the block register their normal sig- 
nal of danger. They remain so as long as the 
train is traveling in that "block." When it 
passes on into the next "block" or section of 
track, the lowest arm on the first or "home" 
post drops. This is a caution sign that tells the 
engineer of the following train that the first 
" block " is clear but that the next " block " be- 
yond is occupied by a train. He knows then that 
he can go into the first " block " without danger 
of a rear end collision but that he must watch 
carefully as he approaches the section of track 
ahead of him. 

When the first train has cleared the second 
" block " or section of track the upper arm on the 
first or " home " semaphore post also drops, thus 
giving the signal " all clear," meaning that there 
is no train within two " blocks " of that point. 

Of course where single track systems are in 
operation tower men, or station agents, if they 
are handling orders from the dispatcher's office, 
must hold all trains traveling in opposite direc- 
tion on sidings until the line is clear for them to 
pass on to the next siding. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN THE ROUNDHOUSE 

Railroad romance centers in the roundhouse. 
This squat semicircular building, that always 
looks grimy, and wreathed in a pall of smoke and 
steam, is the most interesting point on the whole 
division for those who love the romance of the 
game. 

Perhaps it is because this strange building 
is the home of those great steel animal-like 
locomotives that are the life of the railroad, that 
the roundhouse strikes the fancies of every one, 
even the railroad men themselves, as an ideal 
loafing place where good companionship is to be 
found and where railroad gossip is the news of 
the day. 

Not alone the engineers and firemen, and the 

" hostlers " and wipers gather there during their 

leisure hours, but the trainmen, too, especially 

those of the freight crews, find their way there to 

exchange the news of the day and listen to the 

164 



IN THE KOUNDHOUSE 165 

railroad yarns that are always on tap when a 
group of blue, jumper-clad, oil-blacked railroad- 
ers are gathered together. Koundhouse gossip is 
roundhouse gossip the country over and every 
division has its group of story tellers, who gather 
there to tell how Murphy with 928 made the run 
the night of the big blizzard, or how Jones with 
the big new " freight hog " of the K91 type 
hauled twenty-eight coal gondolas up the grade 
at Summit without a pusher. 

By means of these same groups news of the 
road is carried up and down the line. An 
engineer and fireman, finishing their run over 
the terminal division, may stop an hour or 
two in the bunk house, where are gathered 
the men of the next division of the line. 
The latest news from headquarters is dissemi- 
nated by them. They tell of the new system that 
the recently promoted roundhouse foreman has 
established, or the gossip about the men of the 
terminal division, of how Dave Jordan got 
caught between two cars and would likely lose 
an arm as a result of the accident, or how Lafe 
Crawford twisted his leg hopping a freight in the 
yard. 



166 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

This gossip is all absorbed by the men in 
the bunk house and when they go out upon the 
line and reach the bunk house of the next divi- 
sion they pass the stories on to other men, and so 
railroad gossip is carried clear across the coun- 
try for hundreds of miles, and by word of mouth 
friends hear from friends in all corners of the 
country. 

This all makes for a fine feeling of fellowship 
among railroad men, for it is easy enough for 
Jim Smith in "New Jersey to get word to Dick 
Clark in Colorado, or California. Many of the 
" footloose " unmarried railroad men are adven- 
turers at heart too and always craving for new 
fields of travel, and certain groups of them are 
constantly changing jobs, railroading one year 
in "New England and perhaps the next in the 
southwest, riding the tops of cars across the 
plains of Texas. In that way they make hosts 
of friends in all sections of the republic, and 
their roundhouse gossip is always rich with tales 
of adventures in remote corners. 

But although the roundhouse, or rather the 
bunk house adjacent to it, is the place of gossig 
and many stories, the big " engine stable " is also 



IN THE EOUXDHOUSE 167 

a place where a great deal of hard work is accom- 
plished, for it is here that the giants of the line 
are housed and cared for. 

The roundhouse and the section of the yard 
it occupies is frequently the most unprepossess- 
ing in appearance of any corner of the division's 
terminal, but then how could it be otherwise 
when there are great coal pockets there, and ash- 
pits, and water cranes, not to mention the grease 
and oil that are used there and the constant rain 
of cinders and soot from the belching locomo- 
tives. 

The semicircular structure forms the center of 
a group of queer shaped buildings, the most con- 
spicuous of which are the coal pockets. On 
some lines these coal pockets are in the form of 
great round silos that look like huge hogsheads on 
stilts. They are arranged so that locomotives 
can pass under them and pause there while their 
tenders are filled with coal from chutes protrud- 
ing from the bottom of the pockets. 

Hard by are several gruesome, gallows-like 
affairs that stand up beside the track with a huge 
arm extending over the right-of-way. These are 
big and round, however, and their roundness indi- 



168 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

cates that they are made of big six or nine inch 
hollow iron pipes. They are the water towers, 
or cranes which, while the locomotive is being 
coaled, fill the tender's water tank with hundreds 
of gallons of water. 

Close at hand is a long track that looks very 
unlike other tracks in the yard in that its sleep- 
ers or ties are not of wood but of iron, nor do 
they extend from rail to rail. They are, rather, 
iron blocks that support the rails while the space 
between the rails is , excavated to a depth of 
several feet, some of them having a line of mov- 
able buckets on a chain belt running through the 
pit to scoop up the ashes and carry them to wait- 
ing gondola cars near by. In some yards a 
steam shovel or scoop digs the ashes out and 
loads them into the gondola cars. 

Entering the broad portals of the roundhouse 
one sees first of all a queer wheel-like affair of 
huge proportions. This is balanced on heavy 
but interesting looking mechanism and the whole 
is enclosed in a pit just deep enough to make the 
surface of the movable platform even with the 
many lines of tracks that converge toward it. 
This is the turntable, and by means of it the 



IN THE KOUNDHOUSE 169 

great one hundred and fifty or two hundred ton 
locomotives can be turned as easily as — as — well, 
as a caboose cook can turn a flapjack. 

This turntable is situated much as a hub is 
situated in a wheel, and radiating from it are 
short lines of tracks like spokes, each leading 
to the stalls in the roundhouse, for this resting 
place of the locomotives is made up entirely of 
stalls, each large enough to contain a single loco- 
motive. 

Each stall is fitted with a door that can 
be closed and locked when desired. This 
arrangement, coupled with the fact that the word 
" stall " is used by railroad men, and that there 
are certain employees about the roundhouse that 
are called " hostlers," leads one to suspect that 
the roundhouse is a survival of the days before 
the coming of the steam engine when all rail- 
roads were " horse car lines " and when the 
roundhouses were the resting places of four- 
legged horses of flesh and blood instead of the 
steel, steam-driven steeds of to-day. 

The roundhouse is still the home and resting 
place of the motive power of the line, for like 
animals of flesh and blood, these mastodons of 



170 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADS 

steel need resting periods. They get tired out, 
too, after a fashion, and they need rest and food, 
and a good brushing and curry-combing, so to 
speak. For that reason after each long run, if 
it is possible an engine is given a rest period in 
the roundhouse, and as they are called out again 
they come out in the order of their going in, that 
is, those that have had the longest rest periods 
are used first. 

The care and attention that an engine gets in 
the roundhouse is of the best, for while the 
engines only represent about eight per cent, of the 
total value of a railroad's complete property, 
they are in a sense the life of the entire line and 
upon their efficiency depends the efficiency of 
everything else. 

Of course first of all is the care that the 
engineer and the firemen give these pet giants of 
theirs. The firemen are entirely responsible for 
that portion of the engine above the running 
board, or running gear. It is his job to polish up 
its bulging round back, its brass bell, valves, 
pipes and headlight and keep it up to mirror-like 
brightness. This work he does just before or 
just after a long run, wiping off the dust, polish- 



IN THE KOUNDHOUSE 171 

ing all bright metal parts and applying blacking 
wherever it is needed. 

The engineer does his share of this work of up- 
keep on the portion below the running board, 
and he is constantly to be seen crawling about 
the big drive wheels poking into inaccessible 
places in the engine's vitals, with his long-necked 
oil can. 

The mechanism in the cab he cares for in a 
similar manner while the fireman polishes up 
the brass cups and gauges, dials and such like 
and keeps them always sparkling. There are 
some roads on which a constant competition is 
maintained among the engine crews, and the 
engines on each division that are kept in the 
best condition carry on the sides of the cab the 
name of the engineer in charge. This honor is 
taken away from the engineer if he is so unsuc- 
cessful as to have a collision, or any other acci- 
dent in which he can in any measure be held 
responsible. 

But this is by no means all the care that an 
engine receives. When it comes panting in after 
a long hard run of several hundred miles the fire- 
man dusts it off and polishes it and the engineer 



172 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

does a little pottering here and there, just before 
it is turned over to the hostlers and wiper of the 
roundhouse. 

They take charge as soon as the locomotive is 
driven into the roundhouse section of the yard, 
and their first attention is to the fire box. If the 
engine is likely to have a long rest in the round- 
house the fires are entirely drawn; that is that 
ashes and clinkers are shaken down and the fire 
box entirely cleaned out. A hose is applied 
after the fire box is cooled off and all the tiny 
clinkers and cinders are flushed out of the big 
ash pans. 

If, however, the engine is likely to be called 
into service again within a few hours the 
fires and ash pans are merely cleaned; that is, 
the accumulation of ashes is dropped down into 
the ash-pit, the grates are shaken, all the clinkers 
cleaned out of the fire, the live coals raked over 
smoothly and the fires banked. 

While this is being done a hose is used on the 
big drive wheels, the tender and other sections 
where dust and grime have accumulated. When 
these portions have all been soused down thor- 
oughly the wipers get busy and rub the washed 



IN THE KOUNDHOUSE 173 

parts thoroughly, just as a stableman would rub 
down a horse after a long run. 

This done the engine is moved over to the turn- 
table. The man in charge of the electrical mech- 
anism or the stationary engine that operates the 
table turns the platform with the engine on it 
slowly around until it is in the proper position 
to run onto the tracks that lead into its stall, 
then the engine moves to its accustomed sleeping 
quarters, as it were, and settles down for its well- 
earned rest. If there is any tinkering to be done 
on it, mechanics potter around it meanwhile. 

When a call comes for it to go back into serv- 
ice the hostlers back it out and by means of the 
turntable get it out onto the tracks again. Here 
another careful going over is given it, and mean- 
while a mechanical inspector peers into its vitals 
carefully to see that there are no cracks or lose 
bolts or lost nuts that might cause an accident 
out on the line. 

Everything being given an official O. K. by the 
inspector and the wipers having completed their 
task the banked fire is revived, and a full head 
of steam is worked up. 

Then the engine is backed down toward the 



174 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

coal pockets, the chutes swung out and the tender: 
loaded with ten or twelve tons of coal, the 
amount to be consumed on the run that she is 
about to make. The coal loaded, one of the gal- 
lows-like arms of the water tower is swung over 
and the water tank in the tender is filled with 
hundreds of gallons of water. The water of 
course is used in the engine boiler to make steam. 
It is fed or rather pumped from the tank in the 
tender to the boiler by means of pipe lines con- 
nected between the two points. 

There is still another operation to be per- 
formed before the engine is ready to be turned 
over to the engine crew. One of the iron domes 
atop the engine boiler, that looks very much like 
an inverted iron kettle, is the sand chest of the 
locomotive. 

This chest contains hundreds of pounds of 
dried sand (kept dry usually by the heat from 
the boiler). There are long copper pipes that 
lead over the bulging sides of the boiler and 
down to a point just ahead of the drive wheels 
and within a few inches of the tracks. Through 
this the sand can be spread over the rails on 
steep grades, or on wet or icy tracks, to pre- 



IN THE ROUNDHOUSE 175 

vent the locomotive from slipping and to give 
it traction where under ordinary circumstances 
the big drivers would spin around hopelessly try- 
ing to grip the rails. The filling of this sand 
chest is as important almost as the filling of the 
tank or the coal compartment, and great care is 
exercised by the roundhouse men to see that 
every engine has a full supply of sand before it is 
turned over to the engineer. Just how important 
this sand is can be gathered from an incident 
that occurred recently while the writer was sit- 
ting in the dispatcher's office of a big railroad. 
A report had come in of a delay of a certain train. 
The delay occurred in the vicinity of a steep 
grade, and fifteen minutes were wasted by the 
engineer in trying to climb the rise. When the 
run was finished and the conductor filed his train 
report it came over the wire to the dispatcher's 
office with the explanation that the delay was due 
to wet sand that had been put into the sand 
chest. It seems that when the train struck the 
grade the engineer pulled the lever to let the 
sand down, but no sand came through the pipe. 
He tried and tried and tried again. 
He began to think that the engine had been sent 



176 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADS 

out of the roundhouse without having its sand 
chest properly filled. He sent the fireman out on 
the running board to find out. He peered into 
the depths of the sand chest and much to his sur- 
prise found it filled with sand, but it was wet 
sand and it had caked and clogged up the pipe. 
Without the sand it took the engineer fifteen 
minutes to get the train up the grade. 

When this report was read by the dispatcher 
he immediately wired to the roundhouse of the 
division and demanded to know how wet sand 
happened to be put into the sand chest. An 
hour was spent investigating the situation before 
it developed that the sand box had been left open 
at the roundhouse and the nozzle of a water 
tower carelessly turned had dripped water into 
the sand. This had frozen and the moisture was 
retained by the sand until it had been put into 
the steam chest, where the heat had thawed it 
out and caused the sand to cake. You may be 
sure a roundhouse helper was thoroughly talked 
to by his foreman for that. 

Most big roundhouses are directly in charge 
of a roundhouse foreman, who is responsible for 
all that goes on in his domains, but where the 



INT THE KOUNDHOUSE 177 

division is small and the motive power not so 
varied or extensive the roundhouse comes under 
the supervision of the yardniaster. 

Here is a minor railroad official who has a 
tremendous responsibility and who has to be 
hustling every moment of his working day to 
keep track of the thousand and one details that 
are all a part of his work. 

There is on each division a trainmaster, who is 
entirely responsible for all the trains, both pas- 
senger and freight, to go out upon the line from 
the yard or yards of the division. Next in line 
under him is the hard-working yardmaster, who 
does a great deal of the work and lifts much of 
the responsibility off the shoulders of the train- 
master. There is a yardmaster for each yard on 
the division and where the division is big enough 
or busy enough to maintain one yard for passen- 
ger trains and one for freight trains there is a 
yardmaster in charge of each. Under him is a 
night yardmaster who stands the strain of the 
work when the yardmaster is not on duty. 

Every train that comes into the yard must be 
cared for by the yardmaster, trackage provided 
for it and care taken that each car is given the 



178 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

individual attention that its freight demands. 
He must see to the proper making up of each 
train that leaves the yard, he must see that an 
engine of the proper hauling capacity is provided 
by the roundhouse, he must see that the callers 
provide a train crew, he must see that all orders 
for each train are received by the train crew and 
the engine crew, he must be sure that all cars and 
engines in the yard are carefully and regularly 
inspected, he must see that all trains leaving the 
yard are properly cleared and he must be certain 
that a host of other details are attended to. 

Of course he is given an adequate and com- 
petent staff to take care of all this work, but that 
does not relieve him of a single responsibility. 
If his yard gets choked or blocked with freight 
or empty cars, if his motive power is not prop- 
erly cared for, if there is a derailment or wreck 
in his domains, he is the one who has to answer 
to the superintendent of the division. 

Of course all yardmasters do not have to do 
the same amount of perspiring and worrying, for 
all yards are not the same size, nor do all yards 
have to handle the same amount of traffic. But 
it can easily be seen that the life of a yardmaster 



IN THE KOUNDHOUSE 179 

in charge of the big terminal yards where trains 
are coming in and going ont at the rate of one 
every ten minutes, is full of hectic moments and 
situations that demand the best of his ability. 



CHAPTER IX 

IN THE FREIGHT YARD 

Although the limited makes an impressive 
appearance as she comes roaring down a 
straightway stretch of track at better than a mile 
a minute as if she were the all-important train 
of the line, and although the lesser passenger 
trains demand with imperious whistles the right 
of way over everything that turns a wheel ahead 
of them, when considered in the light of earning 
power, they are, so to speak, hollow shams, all 
front and appearance with little to back them 
up. 

True enough, the road spends a great deal 
of money in advertising them, boasts of their 
records, and spends thousands in keeping them 
immaculate with varnish and gilt paint, yet 
when it comes to returning earnings to the rail- 
road's treasury, they cannot hold a candle to the 

grimy, red and yellow vertebrae of clanking 

180 



IN THE FREIGHT YARD 181 

freight cars drawn up on a siding and looking 
very humble as they roar by. The earnings of 
the passenger service of the average road is 
rarely as much as a third of the earnings of the 
line, and it is left to the humble freight trains to 
make up the remaining sixty-six and two-thirds 
per cent, of the railroad's income. 

Measured in romance, too, there is little to the 
passenger service of a line when one considers 
the romance that trails along with the snake- 
like freight trains that in the dark of the night 
go rumbling on their way through sleeping city, 
town, or hamlet, hauling hundreds of thousands 
of dollars' worth of merchandise from one corner 
of the land to the other. 

True, there is romance to the speed of the 
limited, but this factor is not lacking in the 
freight service. There are fast freights, too, 
that never give way to the passenger trains, 
indeed there is no need to, for they can and 
do pound out their forty-five and fifty miles 
an hour on their long night runs. These are the 
trains that carry the preferred freight, the food 
and milk with which to feed the cities. Where 
is the romance, pray, in rushing a few hundred 



182 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

human beings from city to city to keep business 
engagements or visit friends, compared with the 
romance of feeding the population of a great 
city? 

Think of the thousands of tons of flour, or 
fruit in pre-eooled cars, or fish or meat iced 
down in refrigerator cars that each night come 
roaring down the polished rails toward every big 
town or city to supply the wants of the workers 
there. Think of the long black trains of milk 
cars that each day pick up the cans and cases of 
bottles at a thousand sidings in the dairy dis- 
tricts and rush them forward, a hundred miles 
and more, so that it can be served on the break- 
fast tables of the city homes next morning, fresh 
and pure. Where can one find greater romance 
or be of greater service to his fellow men than in 
this work of bringing food to the cities? 

Trains of preferred freight have almost as 
much reason for demanding a clear road as the 
haughty limited herself, for cities cannot wait 
to be fed, and food delayed may mean food 
spoiled, and thousands of dollars wasted. Food 
trains are fast trains with huge engines, that are 
both fast and powerful. True, these trains of 



IN THE FKEIGHT YAED 183 

perishable freight may waste a few precious min- 
utes on a siding to let the limited pass, but all 
other trains stand aside for them, and slow old 
freight trains put in on sidings and middles to let 
these long lines of refrigerator and ventilated 
cars go whirling by. 

Then there are the coal freights, long heavy 
ugly looking steel gondola cars that seem to wind 
interminable lengths on the track through the 
mountainous coal districts. They are not of the 
preferred freight variety, they are too slow and 
cumbersome for that, and food is consumed 
faster than coal is used. They go plodding on 
their tortoise-like way across the lines of the 
country. 

But there are times when they are the 
most important trains on the line. When, 
through strikes or for some other reason, coal 
famine threatens a town or city in the middle of 
the winter they are given clear way and fast lo- 
comotives, for it is upon the railroads that all in- 
land communities to-day depend for their fuel to 
keep their factories going and their homes warm. 
Here is romance indeed in rushing fuel to a com- 
munity that even while the train is roaring down 



184 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILROADS 

through the mountains is burning the last of its 
reserve supply. Sickness, death or financial dis- 
aster may follow the delay of the coal train. No 
city's fire department performs a greater service 
to the community than do the railroads at such 
times as these. 

So, although the passenger service of a rail- 
road may appear to the casual observer to be the 
really vital part of railroading, it is after all no- 
where near as important to the nation as is the 
freight trafiie. 

It would seem to the casual observer also that 
the handling of freight by a railroad calls for 
nothing more than the crudest facilities and the 
crudest labor, but here again the average person 
makes a grave error. One has only to stop to 
consider that passengers can walk and think. 
They can load and unload themselves. They 
know when they have reached their destination 
and can leave the train at their own accord. 
Freight unfortunately has none of these facul- 
ties. 

Even the most inconsequential fifty-pound 
box of soap or case of condensed milk cans re- 
quires the individual attention of a man with a 



IN THE FKEIGHT YAED 185 

brain that thinks clearly, otherwise it is likely to 
land on the Pacific coast instead of New Orleans. 

Infinite details and the hardest kind of work 
surround the movement of freight from one sec- 
tion of the country to another, and although the 
man engaged in its transportation may wear blue 
jumper and overall, and look far from prepos- 
sessing when compared with the immaculate con- 
ductor of a special train of Pullman cars, they 
must have just as comprehensive a knowledge of 
railroading as he has. 

Night is the time that freight is moved over 
the railroads. One of the reasons for this is that 
the heaviest passenger traffic is in the daytime, 
and the rails are less crowded with trains of 
coaches during the hours of darkness. Another 
reason is that all day long the freight cars in the 
yards and at the various freight depots are re- 
ceiving goods from shippers. The business 
houses deliver their packages and barrels and 
what not during the daylight hours, and the rail- 
roads undertake their transportation at night so 
as to conserve as much time as possible. 

That is the reason why at night the freight 
yards of the modern railroad are filled with 



186 THE BOYS' BOOK OP RAILROADS 

gnome-like figures of men in blue jeans, with 
winking lanterns hooked over their arms. Al- 
most weird they seem as they hurry in and out 
among the clanking freights or flit across the 
burning white searchlight rays of engine head- 
lights. What a picture a railroad freight yard 
presents at night! Here is railroad romance 
indeed. 

Let us visit the freight yard of a modern rail- 
road. Here is a great stretch of level territory 
covered with, an appalling number of paralleling 
and intersecting tracks and with switches that 
run up into the thousands. Perhaps there will 
be a huge roundhouse with its turntable, too, 
and its coal pockets and water towers, for often 
the freight engines of a busy division are kept 
separate from those of the passenger service. 
Likely enough there will be other interesting 
sights ; the wrecking train for an instance with 
its squat but powerful derricks on a siding all 
clear so that quick access can be had to the 
tracks of the main line. There are likely to be 
repair shops handy, too, where quick repair can 
be made to freight equipment temporarily use- 
less because of some minor accident. 



IN THE FREIGHT YARD 187 

But the most conspicuous section of this great 
railroad plant, and at all times the busiest por- 
tion of the yard, will be the " gravity hump " that 
stands up almost in the heart of the yard with 
tracks leading up its gradual incline from both 
sides. This gravity hump is a product of modern 
railroading, and there are many freight yards 
that do not have them. 

In the old days of puffing and snorting freight 
engines, several of them, sometimes a perfect 
horde of them, were employed to shunt the freight 
cars back and forth from track to track, cutting 
them out of some trains and adding them on to 
others. Now all this work is done by a single 
switch engine or two or three at the most, and it 
is all accomplished by means of the gravity 
hump. 

Here is a long freight train coming in from the 
west, bumping and rattling over switches as she 
comes into the yard. Her track has been picked 
by the man in the signal and switch tower that 
overlooks the yard, and presently with a wheeze 
of air and several gasping sighs, as if tuckered 
out after her long all-night run, she comes to a 
stop. 



188 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILKOADS 

Almost before her own big freight hauler is 
uncoupled and started slowly back toward tlie 
roundhouse, a saucy freight engine comes chug- 
ging up to her rear end, uncouples her caboose or 
" hack " and shunts it over to a side track where 
it will remain until its occupants, the conductor 
and his crew of brakemen, are called upon to 
take out another freight in the evening, per- 
haps. 

There on the siding, like a many-jointed red 
and yellow snake, the freight train reposes. It 
has come in from Chicago with a varied lot of 
cars. Here are refrigerator cars of meat, bound 
for cities further east, New York, Boston, 
Albany. Here are cars of merchandise bound 
for Philadelphia, and cars of raw silk scheduled 
for New York, or Baltimore ; here are pre-cooled 
fruit cars, a few of them picked up at Chicago 
from an overland freight from the Pacific coast 
and bound for the eastern seaboard, in all a 
varied and strange collection of commodities, all 
on their way somewhere. 

The job confronting the railroad men in the 
yard, the yardmaster in particular, for this is his 
domain, is to break up this long train into sec- 



IN THE FREIGHT YARD 189 

tions and get each car, or group of cars, attached 
to a train bound for the city in which the cars are 
expected. It is in this work that the gravity 
hump is used. 

Almost before the yard inspectors have gone 
over the newly arrived freight looking for in- 
jured or crippled cars which must be drilled out 
of line and sent to the shops for repairs, snorting 
switch engines begin to break apart the line of 
cars, taking several cars at a time and scurrying 
off with them toward this gravity hump. 

The arrangement of tracks in the vicinity of 
the hump is interesting. Again we have the 
bottle as a fine example. At the foot of the 
hump on the ground are a number of paralleling 
tracks. 

On each of these tracks trains are being made 
up, one for New York, another for Philadel- 
phia, and so on. As these tracks reach to- 
ward the hump they gradually converge by 
means of switches until by the time they reach 
the crown of the rise they have converged into 
one or two tracks. 

Now the snorting switch engine that is dis- 
mantling the newly arrived freight drags or 



190 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

pushes the cars it breaks loose from the group 
up to the crown of this hump. Here they are 
uncoupled and by gravity they start to move 
downward toward the trains that are forming 
below. 

As they rush downward switches are thrown, 
so that a car bound for Baltimore is shunted 
in onto the track where the train for that 
city is being formed, the car for Philadel- 
phia is shot in onto the track where the Phila- 
delphia train is forming, and the car for New 
York goes on across the switches to the point 
where it swings in onto the tracks where the 
New York train is being made up. And so it 
goes, hour after hour, cars are drilled up the 
hump and shot down into the slots where they 
belong, brakemen a-top of each handling the 
brake wheels to see that these cars that seem to 
be running wild across the yard do not bump 
into the fast-forming trains too hard to smash 
things. 

And as each train is formed on the level 
stretch at the foot of the hump, cabooses are 
brought forth from the sidings where they have 
been resting, engines come rumbling from the 



IN THE FREIGHT YARD 191 

roundhouses where they too have been catching 
up their wind, so to speak, all are coupled on to 
the newly formed trains, orders are received by 
conductors and engineers, from dispatchers by 
way of the yardmaster, and presently a train 
composed of cars all bound for New York, or 
Philadelphia or Baltimore, cars that had come 
into the yard on a dozen different trains, go 
bumping over the switches and onto the main 
line, off on another lap of their journey toward 
their destination. 

It is a wonderfully efficient system and it is 
truly remarkable how swiftly trains can be 
broken up and reassembled into new trains by 
means of the puffing switch engines and the 
gravity hump. But it must needs be efficient 
nowadays, for in the big freight yards of a busy 
railroad division there can be no lingering or 
delay. Trains come rumbling into some yards 
at the rate of one every ten minutes. That 
means that they must be broken up, reassembled 
and started out again just as swiftly or the yard 
will become congested and the line blocked, 
which is the most serious situation that can 
develop in railroading. 



192 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILEOADS 

All this is the responsibility of the yardmaster. 
We did not exaggerate then when we mentioned, 
back a little, that he mnst be a genius and a man 
able to think quickly and accurately every sec- 
ond. Fancy how it must seem to be in his posi- 
tion with all these trains thundering in on top of 
you, knowing all the time that trackage must be 
found for them, that they must be sorted and 
drilled into place as units of a new train, and 
that they must be started on their way again 
without any delay. 

Nor is that all that this genius must have in 
his mind. There are freight houses connected 
with his yards probably where merchandise is 
being received. He must provide cars for this, 
too. He must see that there are no " empties " 
standing around idle on his siding, for empty 
freights mean money lost. He must keep in 
mind, too, the number of cars from foreign lines 
that he has on his division, and at every oppor- 
tunity he must see to it that these cars get 
started back toward their home lines with mer- 
chandise bound in that direction, for there is a 
daily charge for each car of a foreign line that 
he has on his tracks, and the only way to get 



IN THE FREIGHT YARD 193 

rid of this charge is to hustle the car toward its 
home line as fast as it can be arranged. 

And so it goes. The yardmaster must indeed 
be a genius, but the men under him must be just 
as capable in their work. There can be no time 
lost or no false moves made in the ever busy- 
freight yards. 



CHAPTER X 

THE WRECKING TRAIN 

Dawn was breaking behind the mountains to 
the eastward and the sun, still hidden, was send- 
ing out cheerful tokens of a pleasant, warm 
spring day, with its great splashes of orange 
that painted the clouds and the mountain tops. 
Down the converging steel threads of railroad 
tracks, out of the darkness of the west, thun- 
dered a fast freight of perishable commodities, 
fruit from California and beef from Chicago and 
the west. 

The big mogul engine, headlight still lit, 
came roaring onward, black smoke belching, 
white plumes of steam curling outward, looking 
for all the world like some sinister night-borne 
monster charging out of the west to meet the 
day. 

Because her products were perishable the 

194: 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 195 

freight was making fast time. She approached 
the treacherous S turn at the head of the valley, 
traveling thirty-five miles an hour. But fortu- 
nately Jim Folsom, the engineer, was not will- 
ing to snap the long heavy freight around those 
turns at that rate, and began to let in the air and 
ease down considerably on the speed. Just then 
something happened. What it was neither Jim 
nor any of the rest of the train crew knew. Per- 
haps a rail spread. Perhaps the spring rain 
had eroded the embankment and caused the 
tracks to shift slightly under the weight of the 
engine, but whatever it was, it accomplished a 
quick and effective job in wrecking the freight. 

The big mogul hit the curve, seemed to pause 
and shiver for a moment, as if staggering under 
a blow. Then it reared slightly on its big drive 
wheels, its head swung to the left and with a 
hissing roar, amid a cloud of steam and smoke 
and scattering fire, it rolled over on its side and 
plunged down the high embankment into the 
ditch. 

It was a horrible spectacle. It was like wit- 
nessing the death of some huge prehistoric ani- 
mal, for the big mogul, struggling, coughing, 



196 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

sputtering there in the ditch, resembled in every 
way a terrifically big and strong mammal, mor- 
tally wounded. 

What followed resembled more the results of 
an earthquake. The long red and yellow verte- 
brsB of freight cars shivered and clanked and 
groaned from one extremity to the other. Three 
of the forward cars went rolling and tumbling 
down the embankment with the engine. A 
fourth shot off at a tangent and, crashing 
through iron fence at the bottom, rolled end over 
end into a field of wheat beside the tracks. The 
fifth and sixth in line staggered over and crashed 
into a heap of splinters across the west-bound 
tracks, while several behind crawled up on top 
of each other in a mighty pyramid. The rest of 
the long train, after a shudder or two, stayed on 
the track. 

An eye-witness to the wreck would have 
viewed, beside the spectacle of the dying loco- 
motive, two figures in blue overalls and jumper 
sprawled apparently lifeless, one on the track, 
the other stretched out part way down the em- 
bankment. They were Jim Folsom, the engi- 
neer, and Lafe O'Neill, the fireman. Both had 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 197 

jumped to save themselves when they saw the 
situation was hopeless. 

First one stirred, then the other. Then the 
man on the tracks sat up and looked about in a 
dazed way. He was scarcely conscious. O'Neill 
on the cindered slope began suddenly to claw his 
way up the embankment. Presently he reached 
the tracks and stood up, brushing his hand 
across his eyes with the uncertainty of a dazed 
man. He felt as if he were gradually awaking 
from a bad dream. Then he saw Folsom sitting 
upright, and his brain cleared quickly. He 
helped the engineer to his feet. 

By that time three men came running along 
the line of cars, climbing over the wreckage. 
They were Dolson, the conductor, and the front 
and rear brakemen, who had been in the " hack " 
having breakfast when the crash came. 

"Alive ! Hurt ! No ! Thank heavens," cried 
Dolson, clutching at the shoulders of the still 
dizzy engineer and fireman. 

" Great snakes, what a mess," groaned Folsom 
as he gazed out at the wreck. 

" No fire, thank goodness." 

Dolson gave the scene a hasty survey. 



198 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

" Bad wreck," lie said crisply. Then, " Come 
on, boys. Out with the flags. You, Meyers, 
take the east track. Hurry. No. 87 will be 
along in twenty minutes. You, Lewis, take the 
west track. Go up there and flag everything the 
other side of the bridge. I'm off for Maple Cor- 
ners station." 

And Dolson, although he was gray and forty- 
five, started off at a run to cover the half mile 
between the scene of the wreck and the nearest 
telegraph station. As for Folsom and O'Neill, 
they sat down on a rail of the west-bound tracks 
and, still dazed, said nothing. 

It took Conductor Dolson nearly ten minutes 
to reach Maple Corners. Arthur Canner, the 
station agent, was just unlocking the door of the 
box-like station house when he saw Dolson come 
panting around the curve and down the station 
platform. 

" Hello, Dolson — for the love of Pete what's 
happened? You are white and all out of breath." 

" We're— puff —in— puff— the ditch— puff- 
down at the — puff — curve," panted Dolson, 
struggling with his breath. 

Canner asked no more. He plunged into the 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 199 

station, kicked open the ticket office door and 
the next minute his fingers were ripping out two 
letters that called for a clear wire to New City, 
division headquarters. 

" W.K— W.K— W.K— W.K," he ticked out, 
and up and down the line every one who heard it 
knew that he was calling for the wrecking train. 

Down at New City the dispatcher heard the 
call. Swiftly he cut in and called for details. 

"Fast — freight — No. 417 ditched — at — curve 
— below — Maple Corners/ 7 rapped out Canner, 
and turning asked Dolson for details. 

"No one hurt. Engine in the ditch. Seven 
cars piled up. West-bound tracks blocked/' 
snapped Dolson. 

Canner rapped out the facts with expert speed 
while the dispatcher at the other end took them 
down as calmly as if he were listening to a train 
report or the news of a ball game. 

" Right. Set— flag— for— No. 18— Side-track 
— at Maple Corners — to — let — wrecking — train 
— through," he snapped back to Canner, who 
knew by this i* it somewhere between his station 
and the trnt^rurther west was the early morning 
passenger train. He must flag her and run her 



200 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADg 

up onto a siding to clear the line for the 
wreckers. 

From the dispatcher's office other messages 
were being shot out to clear the line. Every- 
where that a wheel was turning between New 
City and the point of the wreck, trains were be- 
ing stopped and side-tracked to clear the line 
for the wrecking crew. 

Meanwhile at division headquarters things 
were humming. Out in the yard the best loco- 
motive in the roundhouse was being coupled to 
the wrecking train, which day and night stands 
in readiness on a siding waiting to shoot out 
onto the main line and make a record run for 
the point of trouble. 

While the engine was being coupled up 'phone 
messages were flying, routing the members of 
the wrecking crew out of bed in the cases where 
they were still asleep, or hauling them from 
their breakfast tables. They came on the run. 
Inside of two minutes after the 'phone call the 
first of them came running into the yard pulling 
on his coat. In Hye minutes they were all there, 
a round dozen of husky, big-chested, clean-eyed 
men trained in the work of wrecking by years of 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 201 

experience in railroading. They tumbled aboard 
the wrecking train like firemen manning the 
hook-and-ladder truck just before it rolled. Big 
Mike O'Rourk, boss of the wreckers, was every- 
where. He was hurrying the engineer, yelling 
for the wrecking crew's cook, checking up his 
men and in other ways putting things in ship- 
shape for a hard job and hours of almost frantic 
work. 

In twenty minutes after Canner had snapped 
the sharp " W.K" over the wires, the wrecking 
train, fully manned and ready for anything, 
rolled out of the siding onto a cleared main 
line. 

The engineer opened up and they were off 
at a fifty-mile-an-hour clip for the scene of trou- 
ble twenty miles away. No speed laws ham- 
pered them, no blocks were set against them. 
Every semaphore arm beckoned them, and what 
a run they made! They burned up the rails, 
flashing by everything. Even the Overland Lim- 
ited, the pride of the line, was held fretfully on 
a siding to let them pass. It was a record run, 
and as the wreckers ploughed their way through 
slumbering Maple Corners, grizzled old Arthur 



202 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

Canner swore lie had never seen a train travel 
that way before. 

In less than twenty minutes from the time they 
left the yard they were at the scene of the wreck, 
the men tumbling from the flat cars, crowbars 
and axes in hand, Mike O'Rourk, the wrecking 
boss, in front of them all. 

For a minute this veteran of a score of wrecks 
surveyed the scene. Then he began to rip out 
orders that started the men attacking the two 
freight cars piled up across the west-bound 
tracks. These must be cut away first and one 
set of rails opened, anyway. The rest could 
wait until this was done. 

With shouts that sounded more like battle 
cries, the men plunged in and with axes swing- 
ing and crowbars clanking, they began their 
work of demolishing the wreckage that blocked 
the west-bound tracks. Meanwhile the aproned 
cook from the wrecking car appeared on the 
scenes with a bucket of steaming coffee and 
sandwiches prepared during the rail-burning 
run. The men ate as they worked and paused 
only long enough to swallow cups of steaming 
coffee. Folsom and O'Neill and the crew of the 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 203 

wrecked freight joined in the feast and in the 
work, too, for they were as eager as the wreckers 
to get at least one set of rails cleared. 

Under the frantic efforts of the men the two 
cars that blocked the west-bound tracks disap- 
peared as if consumed by a fire. Inside of an 
hour the wreckage had been cleared, and the big 
steel crane of the wrecking train was slowly feel- 
ing her way forward to get a grip onto the 
trucks of the cars and lift them out of the way 
and onto the flat car. Then the west-bound line 
was clear and word was flashed along that would 
let the majestic Overland Limited and the rest 
of the waiting trains through. 

Boss O'Rourk, the emergency met and over- 
come, now turned his attention to the rest of the 
wreckage. He scattered his army of workers 
into little groups and set them attacking at va- 
rious points, for he was a master wrecker, and 
his experienced eye had been able to pick out the 
vital points of the whole hopeless-looking mess 
before him. 

Here was the key to one situation. There 
was the key to another. He knew that these 
were the points of attack by which the whole 



204 THE BOYS; BOOK OF RAILROADS 

mass could be cleared up in tlie shortest possible 
time. 

The men leaped to the work like fighters 
plunging to an attack. Axes flashed, crowbars 
rang, the long arm of the crane reached in and 
out like the trunk of a giant elephant, picking 
out great chunks of wreckage here and there and 
depositing them on the side of the right-of-way 
or on the flat cars of the wrecking train to be 
hauled back to the shops and salvaged. 

For hours they worked. The cook served din- 
ner, meat salvaged from the wrecked refriger- 
ator cars and cooked as only wrecking crew 
cooks know how, with side dishes of cooked 
prunes and raisins taken from one of the scores 
of smashed crates scattered on the right-of-way, 
and oranges for dessert, these also gathered 
from the wreck of the fruit cars. 

Again the men worked and ate between times. 
They seemed hardly human in the way they 
sweated, and panted, and labored. Where, save 
among railroad men, could one possibly find men 
who could, or would, work so ceaselessly, so tire- 
lessly? The afternoon wore on. The wreckage 
on the east-bound tracks was cleared away, and 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 205 

a section gang summoned to the scene began re- 
laying sleepers and rails that had been ripped 
up. 

Meanwhile an engine called from New City 
arrived, passed on the west tracks to the nearest 
cross over, backed down to the rear end of the 
freight and hauled all the cars that were still on 
track out of the general mess and back to the 
yards, where they could be made up into a new 
train and sent on their way. 

The tracks cleared, O'Rourk's men began sal- 
vaging the wreckage in the ditch. Two cars, 
not so badly smashed, were lifted bodily by the 
big steel wrecking crane and placed back upon 
their trucks on the tracks and hurried away to 
the yards. 

Then the big wounded mogul, its steel sides 
dented and its cab shattered, became the 
object of the attention of the wrecking crew. 
Here, it would seem, was a real test for the 
sturdy, stock-looking crane. Steel cables and 
chains were belted about the engine and then, 
with scarcely any apparent effort, the crane set- 
tled to its task, brought the heavy steel monster 
out of what looked to be its grave, and set it back 



206 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

on trucks to be hauled limpingly back to the 
shops. It seemed to be scarcely a real task 
when the wreckers put their shoulders to it, so to 
speak. 

Then all that could be salvaged was salvaged 
by the still toiling wreckers, and when the flat 
cars were piled high with all sorts of things, men 
with cans of oil and torches went about among 
the debris and cleaned up the rest. What a 
blaze it made! The wreckers lined the track, 
their task done, and watched the licking flames 
and the curling smoke complete their work. 
Then as night came on and the fires burned to 
embers and the wrecking train departed, the 
men, dog tired, sprawled out on flat cars or in 
the single coach, wearied to the point of utter 
exhaustion, but happy in the consciousness of a 
task well done. 

******* 

The wrecking trains of a railroad and the 
crews that man them are ready for any emer- 
gency, day or night. They are to the railroad 
what the fire companies are to a large city, for 
they are subject to call day or night, and the call 
may mean to them an hour's work or a round of 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 207 

twenty-four hours of constant back-breaking 
toil, for it is on them that the company depends 
to keep its line open and traffic moving, no mat- 
ter how great the catastrophe. 

In the yard of every division headquarters, 
ready and waiting, stands a wrecking train on a 
track of its own that is always clear and has 
quick access to the main line. The train is 
composed of from four to six cars equipped with 
every sort of tool or implement that might be 
needed in an emergency. One car is equipped 
with a sturdy but squat-looking steel crane. 
This is built low to give clearance through tun- 
nels and under bridges. But in spite of its pro- 
portions it is of Herculean strength, able, as we 
have seen, to lift bodily into the air a one-hun- 
dred-ton locomotive and swing it in any direction. 
The other cars of the train are flat cars, piled up 
with blocks and tackle, great jacks, spare wheels 
or trucks, pickaxes, crowbars, shovels and the 
like, and a host of other equipment too varied to 
mention. 

The rear car of the train is usually a 
coach, and this is the quarters of the wrecking 
crew when on duty. There are bunks or cots 



208 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILEOADS 

here, a mess hall and a kitchen, the domain of 
the cook, for every wrecking crew has its own 
"hash slinger," as the wreckers dub the cook. 
An army travels and fights on its stomach. So 
does a wrecking crew, and the railroad officials 
know that it is highly necessary to provide these 
men, who are willing to sweat and toil cease- 
lessly on a job, the best of grub to keep them 
happy. The " hash slinger " of a wrecking crew 
is always the best of his kind to be found. 

The wrecking crew does not always live with 
the train. Perhaps one or two members, who 
are unmarried and have no other homes, bunk in 
the coach of the wrecking train, but the majority 
of the members of the crew have their own 
homes within a reasonable distance of the yard. 
But they are sure to have telephone sets at the 
head of their beds, by means of which they can 
be summoned at a moment's notice. 

When a wrecking train rolls, to use the par- 
lance of the fire fighters, it is always the best 
and fastest locomotive in the roundhouse that is 
called out to do the work of getting the train and 
its crew to the point of trouble. Some record 
runs have been made by the wrecking train's 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 209 

speeding engine, for no time can be lost when a 
call for action comes. There is only one train 
that can have the right-of-way over the wrecker, 
and that is the hospital train, which fortunately 
is rarely needed except when big passenger train 
accidents occur, and these are few and far be- 
tween. 

The thought and desire that spurs on these 
men of the wrecking crews is that the line must 
be kept open under all circumstances. A blocked 
line may mean a great deal, ranging from the 
loss of money to the railroad and shipper to life 
and death. Should a milk train supplying a 
large city be held up for a day, it means that 
there will be a shortage of milk somewheres and 
babies will go hungry, weak ones becoming 
weaker and possibly ill ones dying. Should 
food trains be stalled for any length of time and 
the food will spoil in transit, there will be a 
shortage at some point which may result seri- 
ously. 

Should the speeding passenger service be 
stopped untold harm may result. Physicians 
may be kept from dying patients, men of big 
business affairs may be kept from appointments 



210 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILROADS 

that may mean a loss of millions of dollars or 
the crippling of an important industry of the 
country. Indeed there is no limit to the catas- 
trophes that might result if the line is blocked. 

So the most important task in the world to the 
railroad man is the necessity of keeping the line 
open. Wrecks must not be permitted to block it 
any longer than is absolutely necessary, and 
floods or storms must be fought and conquered 
before they can cripple traffic, and sometimes 
this task is far more difficult than that of clear- 
ing away wreckage. 

A severe winter storm will do more to upset 
traffic and block the line than the most disas- 
trous of wrecks, especially in mountain districts. 
One of the biggest difficulties that some of the 
western roads encounter are the heavy winter 
storms that over night pile up drifts on the 
right-of-way that will delay traffic for hours or 
even days. , 

These roads, and in fact all northern roads, in 
addition to having their wrecking trains con- 
stantly awaiting a call, have other emergency 
equipment in the form of snow-plows. These 
vary from the flange-like affairs that can be 






■- 
bo 

O 

U 



£ C 
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£ o 

II 

I 5 



b£ 



a 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 211 

bolted to the front of a locomotive to the huge 
rotary plows that are employed by the big 
western roads, and which can cut through drifts 
higher than the average dwelling with as much 
ease as the flange plows of the eastern roads 
push aside a six-inch fall of snow. 

The rotary snow-plow is an ingenious piece of 
mechanism that has been developed by Ameri- 
can railroad genius to fight the storms of winter 
and help the men keep the line open. It is in 
reality a huge sucking fan driven by a powerful 
engine that pushes its way into a snow-drift and 
literally eats through it, sucking the snow in 
and spraying it out through a huge nozzle at the 
side which throws a stream of snow away from 
the right-of-way that would bury a house in 
short order. 

Pushed forward by two or three heavy loco- 
motives, these plows can conquer almost any 
drift if given time, and few are the storms that 
can snow in these mountain divisions nowadays 
and hold them blocked for any length of time. 
The rotary snow-plow can eat its way through a 
veritable mountain of snow if need be. 

Keeping the road open in snow weather calls 



212 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILBOADS 

for all sorts of emergency work, and it is not 
only the men on the line, but the generals in the 
of6.ce as well, who spend hours in harness, disre- 
garding the necessity of sleep or meals or any- 
thing else until the emergency is passed. Out 
on the line switchmen, section men, laborers, 
station agents, engineers and firemen are all 
busy bucking and trying to conquer a snow- 
storm, for there are drifts to clear, crossings to 
clean, frozen switches to be thawed out and kept 
open, signals that must be cared for and a host 
of other disagreeable details that the big snow- 
storms bring on ; while in the offices the superin- 
tendent and his assistants are giving orders, 
backing up the men in their work, flashing 
words of encouragement over the wires, suggest- 
ing changes and doing everything in their power 
to help out, for they know that under any and 
all circumstances the road must be kept open 
and the men on the line must do it. 

But there are a host of other men besides the 
wrecking crews and the snow-plow brigade who 
have that slogan close to their heart. It is part 
of the gospel of the humble track walker, for 
instance, that solitary individual who day after 



THE WRECKING TRAIN 213 

day and night after night walks countless ties 
and innumerable miles in his own effort to keep 
the line open. 

It is for him to watch for defects. If a storm 
has eroded the embankment or a stream seems 
to be encroaching too seriously on the right-of- 
way of the line, he must report it. If he finds 
a loose bolt or a loose fish-plate, he must stop 
and repair the trouble if it is possible, or if 
it is beyond him, do all that he can and then 
report the condition to the section boss. If he 
finds loose spikes, he carries with him one of 
those long-headed track sledges with which to 
drive in a new spike where it is necessary. If he 
finds badly worn or splintered ties he marks 
them for the further inspection of the section 
boss, for he knows that any one of these details 
might result in something more serious, even a 
wreck, and the line would be blocked. 

Then there is the section gang, that group of 
laborers, track builders, and shovelers of ballast. 
They, too, have at heart the necessity of keeping 
the line open. The section gang is in reality the 
track repair crew. These gangs, under the di- 
rection of a section boss, are given a section of 



214 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

from two to ten miles of track to keep in repair. 
They have at their command a hand car, and 
with this bug-like contrivance they scurry up 
and down their section to points where new ties 
are to be put in or new rails laid, or where the 
grade, constantly settling under the pounding 
of heavy trains, needs rebuilding. Always at 
hand they have equipment to work with, for the 
hand car carries their picks and shovels, sledges, 
tamping bars, stone forks, jacks, track gauges 
and what not, and work trains appear occasion- 
ally and drop by the track side at various points 
on their section new ties or rails or kegs of 
spikes, bolts or fish-plates, so that the section 
boss shall never be without the necessary sup- 
plies to help his men in their work of keeping the 
line open. 



CHAPTER XI 

GIANTS OF THE LINE 

There is a story told of an engineer, of Irish 
extraction, who let one of those tiny puffing toy- 
like engines, that were used on a city elevated 
railroad line, play such a part in his life that 
the loss of it made a moral and physical wreck 
of him, and it was not until fifteen years later, 
when he once more had the responsibilities of 
caring for that same engine, that he got back on 
his feet and made a success of life. Such is the 
sentiment of an engineer for his locomotive. 

The engineer of the story was Danny Carroll 

and the engine was No. 9, once the pride of the 

Third Avenue elevated line in New York City. 

Danny petted and pampered and cared for that 

puffing, snorting " fuss-budget " of an engine for 

five years. He came to regard it as his very own 

— almost a companion, a chum, and he endowed 

215 



216 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILBOADS 

it with, a personality. He even talked to it as a 
chap might talk to a horse or a dog. He oiled it 
and pottered about its steel limbs with the care 
and evident affection of a cavalryman and his 
favorite charger. 

Then came the blow that took No. 9 out of 
Danny's life and made a wreck of him. The 
Third Avenue elevated line was electrified — a 
third rail was laid down, motors were installed 
in the hauling cars and in a year's time the last 
of the sputtering, coughing little engines of the 
line disappeared — No. 9 among them. Danny, 
with all the other engineers of the road, was 
given an opportunity to learn how to drive these 
new forms of locomotives. But Danny refused 
in no uncertain language and proceeded to con- 
demn to the nethermost regions the civil engi- 
neers who had installed the electric system. 
Doing away with the steam engines was to him 
a hideous crime and not to be countenanced 
without a protest. 

Protest he did, but it did him little good and 
the day he witnessed the dismantling of No. 9 in 
the shops of the company preparatory to its being 
shipped via steamship to Central America, where 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 217 

it with several companions was to serve out the 
remainder of its years hauling sugar cane across 
the big plantation, Danny Carroll took to drink- 
ing. 

That was Danny's downfall. From a sober, 
industrious, hard-working young chap he be- 
came a frousy, disreputable creature in the 
course of time, always bemoaning the loss of 
No. 9 and condemning the engineers who were 
responsible for it. Year after year slipped by. 
Danny went from bad to worse until he became 
a denizen of the underworld, not actually a 
criminal, but so closely associated with crime 
that the mere sight of a police uniform struck 
fear to his heart. 

One night, fifteen years after he had lost 
No. 9, he was caught in a police raid on a dive 
that had become the hangout of a gang of 
thieves. Danny was there because he had not 
the money or friends to be in more respectable 
quarters. 

The raid burst upon the disreputable charac- 
ters in the rendezvous so unexpectedly that a 
terrific fight resulted between police and gang- 
sters and in the mel6e, somehow, Danny Carroll 



218 THE BOYS' BOOK OP KAILBOADS 

detached himself from the mob, slipped through 
an unguarded window, and presently found him- 
self in a water-front street with the yawning 
doors of a darkened pier inviting him to hide 
within. 

Danny seized the opportunity and slipped in- 
side, only to disturb the night watchman, who 
began searching for him. To avoid capture the 
erstwhile engineer climbed a hawser hand over 
hand and presently let himself down onto the 
deck of a steamship moored to the pier. But 
this was hardly a secure hiding place, so he 
slipped along the deck rail until he came to an 
open hatchway, where he let himself down into 
the hold of the vessel. Then being very tired, 
and with his brain fogged with drink, he lay 
down on some bales of cotton cloth and promptly 
fell asleep. 

When he awoke Danny found to his conster- 
nation that the vessel was at sea, and after three 
days of hiding and starving in the hold Danny 
appeared on deck and was promptly put to work 
with a scrubbing brush. 

The first port the ship touched at had an un- 
pronounceable Spanish name to it, but that 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 219 

made no difference to the chief officer of the 
ship. He put his super-cargo off there and the 
ship sailed away, with Danny standing mourn- 
fully on the dock, trying to decide what to do 
next. 

About that time he heard shouts and the 
clank of a sledge-hammer and the hiss of steam, 
out beyond a long storage shed. Danny hied 
himself in that direction and presently came 
upon a motley crew of pajama-clad soldiers gath- 
ered around a dinky locomotive. They were try- 
ing to repair it with a sledge and cold chisel. 
For a moment Danny was struck dumb with as- 
tonishment, for in the snorting little engine he 
recognized old No. 9, his friend of fifteen years 
back. 

With a roar of rage he plunged in among the 
crowd of soldiers and scattered them right and 
left. He acted for all the world like an en- 
raged bull as he seized the man who was wield- 
ing the sledge and flung him end over end 
along the dock. The man with the coal chisel 
ran before he could get his hands on him. 
Single-handed Danny whipped the entire army, 
for they all fled in panic. 



220 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

Danny took charge of things immediately. 
Once more associated with his engine he became 
the same forceful man he had been fifteen years 
before. He found that the soldiers were the 
government force of the little republic and that 
the engine had been captured from the forces of 
a revolutionary army. The engine promised to 
be of real value in their military campaign if 
they could somehow get it to move. Something 
was out of order, however, and their efforts to 
mend it looked hopeless until Danny had ap- 
peared on the scene. 

Of course Danny repaired the engine and got 
it to operate, and for his efforts he was made 
chief of the republic's single railroad by the 
president. He became a man of prominence and 
responsibility immediately and at the throttle 
of No. 9 he played a real part in putting down 
the revolution and getting the country in order. 
And he is still the country's most prominent 
railroad man for all the writer knows, and No. 9, 
hopelessly crippled in the fighting, now occupies 
a huge granite block in the public square of the 
republic's capital as the hero engine. 

If this dinky, little, snorting "stove on 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 221 

wheels," as the railroad men characterize the 
old-tiine elevated railroad engine, conld exercise 
such an influence over Danny Carroll, think 
what an influence one of the present-day giants 
of the line must be to the average railroad engi- 
neer. True, to wax sentimental over one of 
these huge freight hogs would seem like an at- 
tempt to coddle a mastodon, but nevertheless the 
average engineer is almost as devoted to his big 
steel horse as Danny was. 

An engineer, and his fireman, too, take a tre- 
mendous lot of pride in their engine. They also 
seem to endow these animate man-made crea- 
tures with a personality, and they watch over 
them and care for them as carefully as they 
would a pet horse or dog. 

But well they might, for these giants of the 
line are conceded to be the greatest engines in 
the world. American locomotives are the big- 
gest, speediest, strongest and finest in the whole 
world, and it is an honor indeed to be in full 
charge of one of them — an honor that carries 
with it a salary amounting to almost as much as 
that of a division superintendent, and real pres- 
tige among railroad men. 



222 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

There seems to be no limit to the massiveness 
and power of the railroad locomotive, and al- 
though perfectly enormous ones have been built 
and are being used to-day, railroad men agree 
that the limit has not yet been reached. In- 
creasingly heavy freight traffic rather than 
passenger traffic has been responsible for the de- 
velopment of the locomotive to its huge propor- 
tions of to-day. To haul some of the immense 
trains of freight cars over the steep mountain 
grades of the west veritable giants are required. 

One of the biggest type of locomotive in use 
to-day is in the service of one of the western 
roads, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Lines, 
where they are used to push huge freight trains 
over the steep grades of the section of the south- 
west traversed by these lines. Those great 
engines are one hundred and twenty-one feet 
long and have sixteen drive wheels. In reality 
they are two locomotives served by the same 
steam system and fire box. The drive wheels are 
divided into groups of four and are served by 
separate sets of cylinders, and the massive giant, 
although it is too long to conveniently navigate 
sharp curves, is made almost flexible by an in- 



GIAOTS OF THE LIKE, 223 

genious set of joints in its steel frame. It weighs 
better than fonr hundred tons and the amount 
of freight that it can move is enormous. 

This is known as the Mallet type of locomotive 
and is without a doubt the most powerful rail- 
road engine in the world. Other Mallets not so 
big but almost as powerful are in use on other 
lines of the country, the Delaware and Hudson 
Company having some with sixteen drive wheels 
that are ninety feet long and weigh two hundred 
and twenty-three tons. These too are used as 
pusher engines for the huge freights of coal cars 
that are operated by that company in the moun- 
tainous region of the line. 

It is interesting to know that this last named 
road was the first in America to use a steam 
locomotive and the first locomotive used was not 
American but English. It was a tiny seven ton 
machine imported from England and named the 
Stourbridge Lion: It is interesting to compare 
this little fellow with the giants who travel the 
same right-of-way now weighing thirty times as 
much and having the power of a perfect fleet of 
these little fellows. 

Rivaling these giants both in size and in power 



224= THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

are the new engines that the Erie Railroad re- 
cently added to its powerful equipment of 
pushers in the coal fields district of the line. 
This type, new to the Erie, is an engine well 
over the four-hundred-ton variety, having a total 
weight of 853,000 pounds with a tractive force 
of 160,000 pounds. It has a water tank capacity 
of 10,000 gallons and a coal consuming capacity 
of sixteen tons. Its length is one hundred and 
^.ve feet. 

These engines have six cylinders, two of them 
high pressure, thirty-six inches by thirty-two, 
and four low pressure of the same dimensions. 
The drive wheels are huge affairs of sixty-three 
inches diameter. 

Some idea of the terrific pulling power of this 
engine can be had when it is explained that in a 
test one hauled two hundred and fifty-one fully 
loaded fifty-one ton gondola cars, making a train 
of 35,824,000 pounds. But this is not its limit by 
any means, for it is said that it can haul a train 
four and three-quarter miles long (containing 
about six hundred and forty cars) . A train this 
size would weigh 90,000,000 pounds. 

As mentioned before, it was the freight serv- 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 225 

ice, and not the passenger service that is re- 
sponsible for the development of these wonderful 
Mallet type of engines that are built for 
power rather than speed. But America has 
outstripped the world in speed locomotives, 
too. 

There are three tremendously swift types 
being used in the passenger service in this 
country to-day. They are known as the At- 
lantic type, the Pacific type and the Prairie 
type, all of which are huge things with great 
drive wheels and they can whizz a train of pas- 
senger coaches over the landscape at better than 
a mile a minute with great ease. 

It is interesting in digging back into the his- 
tory of locomotives to find that sixty miles an 
hour — a mile a minute — was not unheard of on 
American railroads very early in their history. 
Indeed it is said that a train driven by a locomo- 
tive built in the foundries of Matthias Baldwin, 
a watch-maker, and the man who founded the 
now famous locomotive works that bears his 
name, drew a train of special coaches on the 
Pennsylvania Bailroad, one of them the private 
car of President Zachary Taylor, at the rate of 



226 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

sixty miles an hour during Taylor's term of 
office. 

But before that even greater speed was 
attained, for this same famous locomotive 
builder constructed an engine for the Vermont 
Central Railroad that from a standing start 
covered a measured mile in forty-three seconds. 
The speedsters of to-day have only been able to 
shave this a matter of a few seconds, ten to fif- 
teen at the most. 

It was this performance, along with others of 
a different character but equally as important, 
that made American locomotives famous the 
world over and has ever since kept Europe's eyes 
turned to us for all things new and wonderful in 
railroading. 

In the early history of the locomotive it was 
difficult to construct one that was capable of 
hauling a great load up a grade. Until then 
England was considered to be building the best 
locomotives in the world, but her best were not 
capable of power enough or traction enough to 
conquer grades. 

Among the pioneers in locomotive building 
was one Norris of Philadelphia, who had been 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 227 

experimenting with locomotive construction. 
He finally developed the engine since become 
famous as the " George Washington," which 
succeeded in climbing a heavy grade drag- 
ging two cars behind. It not only made the 
grade, but midway up came to a dead stop and 
started to climb again. This was indeed a re- 
markable achievement and news of it traveled 
around the world. But England, jealous of her 
prestige as a builder of locomotives, jeered and 
scoffed and the British papers said that the 
stories told of the Norris engine were fairy tales. 
This nettled the Philadelphian as it nettled 
many other Americans, and Norris promptly 
built another engine and packing it up shipped 
it to England, where he had it assembled again. 
Then he demanded to know the stiffest grade 
they had to test it on, and when the grade was 
made known to him he made his engine climb it 
and come down again, stopping and starting 
midway in the journey, as his American engine 
had done. 

That was enough. Doubting old England 
believed. It stretched its head and sighed, 
but it believed, for the representatives of 



228 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILROADS 

Germany, France and Italy, as well as other 
European nations, promptly acclaimed America 
the leader in locomotive construction, and Nor- 
ris returned to America with so many orders 
that he could not fill them all in the time speci- 
fied. It was then in 1835 that America out- 
stripped England as the nation of railroads and 
we have continued to run well ahead of her ever 
since. 

One of the early British engines to make a 
record for itself in this country was the " John 
Bull," which is now on exhibition in the Smith- 
sonian Institute in Washington. There are 
other American made engines of the early days 
of railroading that were just as conspicuous as 
this one. The engine known as the " Best Friend 
of Charleston " was the first American built lo- 
comotive to be successfully operated in this 
country. It was built in the West Point foun- 
dries in New York City. 

The " De Witt Clinton " was the first locomo- 
tive to travel the rails that were laid along the 
historic Indian trail up the Hudson valley. The 
" Arabian " is another famous early American 
engine, so is the " Tom Thumb," that was built 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 229 

by Peter Cooper and used on the Baltimore and 
Ohio. 

From these strange specimens to the present- 
day Mallet is a far cry, but the steps in between 
have been many and labored. For years wood 
was the fuel of the engines. Then coal became 
the fodder for the fire boxes. Now there are 
fast locomotives that are known as oil burners, 
their tenders being huge tanks that supply them 
with petroleum. There are steps that hardly 
look like progress in the development of the 
steam locomotive, such as the adoption of the 
steam whistle in addition to the original bell, 
and the headlight for use at night. All these 
represent the ingenuity of American engineers. 

To-day's locomotives, for there are a variety 
of types for a variety of work, are real triumphs. 
They are the reasons for our nation's supremacy 
in railroading. Good motive power, although it 
represents scarcely ten per cent, (about eight per 
cent.) of the investment of a railroad, is really 
the life of the road itself, for the money-earning 
capacity of the road depends entirely upon how 
modern its haulers are and how well they are 
cared for and maintained. 



230 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILKOADS 

Every railroad takes good care of its engines. 
In truth every railroad takes good care of its 
rolling stock, whether it be engines, flat cars, 
freights or coaches, for it is on these that the 
wear and tear of traffic first shows itself, and it 
is by the appearance of these that prospective 
patrons, whether shippers or passengers, judge 
the road. They must keep their equipment look- 
ing nice and they must keep it mechanically flaw- 
less in every detail as a safety measure. 

To this end every railroad maintains special 
groups of men who, while their work is not as 
romantic as that of the engineer or the brake- 
man atop the swaying cars, is every bit as neces- 
sary to the safety of the road. There are in- 
spectors who day and night go over the equip- 
ment of the road. They are trained men who by 
the tap of a hammer on a car wheel can tell from 
the sound given off whether crack or flaw is 
there. 

Tirelessly by day and by night they are 
to be found crawling under cars or climbing over 
them, working by torch-light or sunlight, but al- 
ways working, looking, searching, testing, in 1 
quest of the flaw that might mean a wreck ancl 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 231 

the death of a score of human beings or the loss 
of thousands of dollars in freight. 

And back of the inspectors are the shops with 
their thousands of trained employees who can do 
anything from casting a car wheel in the foun- 
dry to rebuilding a locomotive. 

The shops are an important department of a 
railroad, for it is on them that the road depends 
to keep its rolling stock in service order. On 
the care with which repairs are made depends 
the safety of its equipment, and on the speed 
with which this repair work is done depends the 
earning capacity of the rolling stock. To keep a 
car in the shops a week means that hundreds of 
dollars is being lost by the road. To keep a lo- 
comotive in the shop overlong means that thou- 
sands of dollars are being lost by the road. 

As a rule, shops for minor or light repair work 
are maintained on each division, with larger and 
more complete shops at some central points 
where locomotives or cars can be sent when their 
overhauling is to be of an extensive nature. One 
road, the Pennsylvania, maintains at Altoona, 
Pennsylvania, a tremendous plant where not 
only repair work is done, but where equipment 



232 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

is manufactured. Facilities are provided at Al- 
toona for the manufacture of one thousand cast- 
iron car wheels every twenty-four hours and for 
the building of complete locomotives or steel 
passenger coaches. 

But not all roads have gone in for the manu- 
facture of equipment the way the Pennsylvania 
has. Most of them are content to buy locomo- 
tives and new equipment from the foundries of 
private companies and keep them in repair at 
their own shops. 

The giants of the line make periodical visits 
to the shop, there to undergo attention. It is 
estimated that every locomotive after it has 
traveled from 50,000 to 70,000 miles of rails 
should be turned into the shops to be thoroughly 
overhauled. And thorough is the overhauling. 

The shops are provided with huge traveling 
cranes that can lift a locomotive clear off the 
tracks and swing it into the air as easily as one 
lifts a ten-pound bag of sugar. When a locomo- 
tive reports for an overhauling it is entirely dis- 
mantled ; this huge crane lifting the boiler from 
the trucks and taking the huge cylinder weigh- 
ing tons to the far end of the shop deposits it in 



GIAOTS OF THE LINE 233 

the boiler maker's department where men tinker 
up the tubes and scrape it and otherwise put it 
in order. 

Meanwhile other workmen begin on vari- 
ous other parts, some caring for the drive 
wheels, others the cylinders, and still others the 
pumps and other machinery. They work swiftly, 
these men of the shops, for they realize that 
every minute the locomotive is out of commis- 
sion means just so much loss to the road. But 
with all their swiftness they work carefully, too, 
for they realize that upon the carefulness of their 
work depends a tremendous lot. Just how 
swiftly they do work can be realized when some 
of the records for complete dismantlement, over- 
hauling and reassemblying of a locomotive are 
given. Two shops of the Erie Railroad hold the 
records. The first was made by the men at the 
Hornellsville shops when they took down a loco- 
motive, cleaned and repaired all of its five to 
seven thousand parts and reassembled it again 
in twenty-four hours of solid work. 

This stood as a record for a short time until 
the workmen of the Susquehanna shops under- 
took to smash it. And smash it they did. From 



234 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

seven o'clock in the morning until thirty-four 
minutes after seven at night they did all that 
their rivals in the Hornellsville shops accom- 
plished, and the night of the same day that the 
big locomotive came to the shop she was out on 
the line dragging a long clanking vertebrae of 
red and yellow freight cars westward. That is 
the last record, and it is questionable whether 
the best of organized shop crews will ever reduce 
it by many minutes. 

An interesting phase of the work of keeping 
the rolling stock of a railroad in working order 
is found in the work that is done by many lines 
on cars that are not their property. You are 
familiar now with the method of interchanging 
cars and the rental basis that prevails among 
the roads. In order to keep these cars con- 
stantly in service the line on which the car is in 
use at the time it breaks down repairs it whether 
the car belongs to them or a rival line, or a line 
clear across the continent. It would obviously 
be an act of folly to try and send a crippled 
freight car back to the shops of its own' line to 
be repaired. It might be two thousand miles 
away from the nearest shop of its own line and 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 235 

in the ordinary course of events it might take 
weeks to get it back to its own base. This would 
be a waste of space and equipment and time, not 
to mention the power required to haul an empty 
car two thousand miles. For that reason the 
road on which it is being used at the time it 
breaks down sends it to its own shop, makes the 
repairs that are necessary, puts it back into serv- 
ice and charges the home company for the repair 
work. 

With all the lines in the country doing 
this, it is evident that a tremendously compli- 
cated bookkeeping system is necessary, but some- 
how, through good management and system, 
they are all able to keep track of this repair 
work. 

Nearly all roads of any size maintain carpen- 
ter shops and freight car building shops, in 
which the most of the wooden freight cars are 
constructed. Building the bodies of these 
wooden cars is not difficult. But now that steel 
cars are fast replacing cars of wood construction 
it is likely that these car building shops will 
gradually be reduced to shops in which the old 
type of freight car will simply be repaired and 



236 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

rebuilt until it is ready to be declared unfit for 
further service. 

Then there are the paint shops. Just as im- 
portant are these shops as are the foundries and 
machine shops, for few structures are called 
upon to face the weather conditions that the cars 
of a railroad must withstand. The freight cars 
are out in all sorts of weather. They are hauled 
through blizzard, sleet and rain-storms, they face 
the salt winds and spray of the seaboard, only to 
be hauled in a few days across the blistering 
sands of the desert, they are snow-bound, mud 
spattered, dust caked and begrimed with oil and 
soot until sometimes the lettering on them is un- 
recognizable. 

Such conditions are bound to make wooden 
structural work depreciate unless liberally 
protected with paint. Liberal is the word. 
Freight cars are not painted with brushes 
and buckets of paint as are houses. In the 
railroad paint shop they are literally deluged 
with paint. It is squirted onto them through 
hose lines and the coating they get is thick in- 
deed. But it must be to protect them against the 
elements. Red or yellow are the colors usually 



GIANTS OF THE LINE 237 

selected, and they are spattered from end to end, 
after which they are left to dry out before other 
painters come along with stencils and number 
them and letter the name of the line on their 
shining sides. But in spite of this paint bath 
they are destined to visit the paint shops again 
inside of a year, so roughly are they treated on 
the road. 

Passenger coaches must survive almost the 
same conditions as the freight cars are called 
upon to face, and they too must make their pe- 
riodical appearance at the paint shop where, al- 
though their treatment is not quite so rugged, it 
is just as effective. Several coats of paint are 
applied to their sides while men inside are wield- 
ing varnish brushes. Three coats of varnish is 
finally applied to the exterior of the coaches and 
thoroughly rubbed and polished before they are 
turned loose to face the elements once more. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DIVISION'S KING 

A veritable king is the superintendent of a 
division. He is king in that his word is law. 
His is the hand of authority over the division. 
He rules the several hundred miles of trackage 
that composes his division along with the yards, 
roundhouses and equipment. But unlike the 
kings of old, the style of kings that disappeared 
with the great World War, the superintendent 
can't sit back in his throne room or office in ease 
and comfort, speaking with authority and yet 
passing on the hard work and trouble to the 
prime ministers and others gathered around him 
and keeping his own hands clean. 

" ]STo sirree," with the " super's w authority goes 

for all the responsibilities of his empire. Every 

problem of the division is laid before him and it 

is his head that gets gray and bald thinking out 

situations. He is a czar all right, but he's a czar 

who has his coat off and his shirt sleeves rolled 

up, sweating royal sweat over his job, and sweat- 

238 



THE DIVISION'S KING 239 

ing sometimes fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty- 
four, yes, sometimes twice twenty-four hours 
without any sleep when his division is facing a 
crisis. It's fun to be a king in the railroad world 
but it is also " bloomin' " hard work. 

The men out on the line may struggle with 
real tasks, but the head of the division toils 
harder. His are all the problems of his territory 
and he is constantly busy trying to meet them. 
Daily he faces the necessity of providing better 
facilities to increase the road's business. His 
division must stand up and keep pace with the 
rest of the line or else the power behind the 
throne, the general manager, and the men he rep- 
resents, the directors and stockholders, demand 
to know the reason why. He must be constantly 
on the alert to provide means of unloading cars 
faster and getting them back into service so as 
to earn more money for the road. He must see 
that his division has enough equipment, and that 
it is in good condition. He must see that the 
heads of a score of departments under him are 
doing their work and in turn getting the best 
results out of their men and equipment. He 
must see that the men who are working under 



240 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

him are kept satisfied and happy with their jobs. 
He must keep in constant touch with the service 
that is being maintained on his end of the line. 
He must know, and in a measure help shape the 
road's policies. 

He must be ready to pacify all disgruntled 
patrons of the road, whether they be the humble 
holders of a one-way ticket to Askog or the mer- 
chant prince who is shipping freight over his 
division in car-load lots. He must do a million 
and one things as a regular part of his job and 
after he gets those done he must do a few mil- 
lion more. 

Then in addition to all this he is the man to 
meet every emergency of the road. If a freight 
train is wrecked and a dozen cars of coal are 
scattered over the right-of-way, blocking the 
tracks of his division, he has got to think out 
the way of keeping everything moving. This 
happened recently on the terminal division of a 
big road serving New York, and it will serve as 
a good example of how a superintendent must 
work in an emergency to keep his division oper- 
ating. 

The wreck occurred between one and two 



THE DIVISION'S XING 241 

o'clock in the morning when most men, except- 
ing of course railroad men, are supposed to be in 
bed and asleep. The cars tore up several hun- 
dred yards of tracks, bending rails, ripping out 
sleepers like so many match sticks, smashing 
freight cars, and bending the heavy steel coal 
gondolas all out of shape, while coal piled upon 
the right-of-way in a veritable mountain, be- 
tween three and four hundred tons of it. There 
was a mess. 

Of course word of the wreck was flashed to the 
dispatcher's office and when the chief dispatcher 
got the news, he recognized it as an emergency 
that he was not expected to tackle alone, so he 
immediately got the superintendent on the wire. 
Yes, he routed the sleeping king out of bed. A 
half hour later, with eyes still blinking with 
sleep, the superintendent whizzed up to his of- 
fice in his swift little roadster and climbed into 
his chair behind his desk. A report on the entire 
situation was before him and the chief dis- 
patcher was at his elbow, a ready and willing 
assistant. 

The wrecking train had already been ordered 
out and was clear of the yard and booming along 



242 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

at high speed toward the scene of trouble. Other 
emergency measures had also been adopted and 
the decks were clear for the superintendent to 
work out the problem. 

Chewing an unlighted cigar the " super " 
scanned the report and sat back to think a mo- 
ment. 

"Rotten mess. Two o'clock now. In three 
hours the commuting trains will start down. 
We will have to get 30,000 people around that 
wreck and not lose a minute's time." Thus he 
summed up the situation. 

Then he began popping out orders. Out and 
incoming trains were rerouted, some of them 
making a detour of two hundred miles on other 
lines to avoid the wreck. Then additional mo- 
tive power was requested from near-by points 
and a brand new train schedule was worked out 
with emergency trains made up to run from the 
terminal to the wreck. 

As dawn began to paint the sky across the 
river and throw into a golden relief the impress- 
ive sky-line of the mighty city across the Hud- 
son River, the first of these trains were started 
out toward the wreck. Meanwhile wreckers had 



THE DIVISION'S KING 243 

built a foot-path around the piled up jam of coal 
cars and when the first commutation train came 
down the line the passengers were detrained, 
walked around the wreck and reloaded into 
trains that were constantly arriving to meet 
them. They reached the city just fifteen min- 
utes later than usual. That was an achievement 

It sounds simple when set down here in cold 
print, but think of the work involved. Think of 
the army of men needed during the night hours. 
Think of the care and attention demanded by 
these trains with their loads of human freight. 
It all had to be done without an accident and 
with as little inconvenience to passengers as 
possible. And the burden of the responsibility 
for it all fell upon the superintendent. 

And in the general order of things emergen- 
cies demanding as much work may occur with 
great frequency. Indeed in the winter time 
there seems to be no limit to the number of dis- 
agreeable situations that can come up as the re- 
sult of the traffic-blocking storms. Many a night 
this same superintendent has been routed out of 
bed or prevented from going to bed in an all- 
night fight to keep the line from being blocked 



244 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

by snow. Many a time with but little notice lie 
has mobilized a veritable army of men to shovel 
out the switches and keep them from being 
frozen solid with burning oil torches. 

And then there may be still other emergencies 
resulting from situations developing within the 
road's organization. Within recent years there 
have been several unfortunate railroad strikes. 
It is not difficult to believe the concern and 
sleepless hours of the superintendent of a divi- 
sion under such circumstances. Or it may be 
that suddenly so much business is dumped onto 
one division of the line that the entire equipment 
of the division is used up and there is still a 
tremendous bulk of stuff to be moved. All the 
reserve motive power at one point on the divi- 
sion may be in use and the superintendent finds 
that he still needs more and needs it in a hurry. 
Then it is that the engines from some other point 
must be requisitioned. But there is heavy traf- 
fic at this point, too. The superintendent plays 
a regular war game then, shooting engines to the 
first point and clearing up the jam there, then 
rushing them back to the place from which they 
were borrowed and getting the situation there: 



THE DIVISION'S KING 245 

untangled before it gets too serious. Oh, the 
division superintendent's life is a busy one and 
no mistake. 

But there are men constantly striving and 
working to attain that position. It is the goal 
to which all ambitious railroad men's eyes are 
turned and the high school boy who comes into 
the service of the line as a call boy begins to 
dream immediately of the day that he will oc- 
cupy the " super's "job and have the reins of the 
division in his hands. 

And all roads lead to the position of superin- 
tendent. The humblest employee, in the most in- 
consequential position on the line, can hope to 
be a superintendent, and by hard work can at- 
tain that pinnacle if he has the background of a 
high school education, the never-say-die spirit 
of railroading in his make-up, and a brain that 
he has trained to be keen, quick and observing. 

The operator in a tower can hope to be super- 
intendent. If he has the qualities needed he can 
soon become a train dispatcher, then chief of the 
dispatchers, and from there step up into the posi- 
tion of division superintendent. The fellow out 
on the track, the ambitious, bright-eyed fellow of 



246 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

sixteen who carries water for the section gang, 
can become superintendent if he is willing to 
work hard days and study nights. He can be- 
come the foreman of that gang first, then with 
time and study of technical subjects, he can be- 
come track foreman and later track superintend- 
ent, then perhaps division engineer, and if he is 
the right man from there he will eventually move 
up to superintendent. 

Even the chap who goes in as office boy or 
clerk on the big staff that is always employed in 
the superintendent's office can hope to have his 
chief's job some day. If he has the backbone 
and fighting qualities to forge ahead and become 
chief clerk, and after he has mastered all the 
office details, go out upon the line for four or 
five years to get the practical experience of rail- 
roading, he, too, can hope to occupy the position 
of chief of the division. 

Take the career of the superintendent who 
solved the problem of getting the commuters 
around the wrecked coal cars. It is a mighty 
good example of just what a boy can do for him- 
self if he works hard. 

John Campbell (we will call him that because 



THE DIVISION'S KING 247 

he prefers to keep his identity a secret) loved 
railroading. He thought, ate and slept railroad- 
ing, it seemed, while he was in school. After 
school hours he was always to be found some- 
where about the railroad, but usually at the big 
interlocking signal tower that was situated near 
the station of his home town. 

He made friends with the operator of that 
tower, a typical railroad man and always inter- 
ested in any one who was interested in railroad- 
ing. The tower man called him Jack and taught 
him all that a chap of fifteen could learn about 
railroading. Best of all, he learned to become a 
fair telegraph operator. 

At sixteen Jack Campbell graduated from 
high school. He decided then to take a position, 
and of course the one thing uppermost in his 
mind was to get a position with the road. He 
got it. Viewed in the light of his present posi- 
tion as superintendent, his first job was humble 
indeed. He was employed as combination night 
ticket agent, baggagemaster and express agent 
at a tiny station on the line known in railroad 
circles as the Big 4. His salary was the magnifi- 
cent sum of twenty dollars a month — less than 



248 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KAILKOADS 

five dollars a week. But to him it was a real job 
with real responsibilities, and he made up his 
mind that he was going to do his work with real 
enthusiasm. Every night he trudged to the sta- 
tion, his lunch pail on his arm. It was hard to 
have to keep awake and work, struggling with 
baggage trucks that were so big he could hardly 
see over them (for he was short for his age) 
while the whole town, his boy chums included, 
were fast asleep. But he worked with a will and 
he grasped every opportunity to learn railroad- 
ing. Every time a freight was held over on his 
station siding for orders Jack was out frater- 
nizing with the train crew. He always sought 
the company of men older than himself, for he 
knew that he could learn things from them 
where he could not learn anything from chaps 
his own age. And learn he did. He absorbed 
railroad gossip and information as a sponge ab- 
sorbs water, and he was doing his job well at the 
same time. 

Then came his first jolt. He lost his job. A 
wave of economy struck the road and it was de- 
cided to cut down the force. His station was 
considered too unimportant to demand a night 



THE DIVISION'S KING 249 

ticket agent and it was closed for night service. 
This future superintendent was fired. 

But that did not make him disgruntled at rail- 
roading. Instead he promptly began scouting 
around among his now big list of railroad ac- 
quaintances and inside of a few weeks landed a 
job as yard clerk on another line for which he 
was paid at a better rate, his salary being thirty- 
five dollars a month. Here, too, he worked 
nights. But he did not mind that, for it gave 
him some daylight hours to study and work for 
himself. Still he pursued the policy of chum- 
ming with the men who were older in the service 
than he was, learning all he could from them 
about their part of the business. 

He began to show real ability then and quite 
unexpectedly he was given the job of night yard- 
master with all its responsibilities. He was then 
in full charge of the make-up of all trains in and 
out of the yard at night. That was only a step 
behind being in full charge of the yard as day 
yardmaster, and in a surprisingly short time he 
was promoted to that post. And he was still 
comparatively a boy, not yet having cast his first 
vote. He was sure now that hard work and con- 



250 THE BOYS' BOOK OF KXILEOADB 

stant application to Ms job were well worth 
while. 

About this time lie began to analyze himself 
and felt a little discontented with things. He 
knew there was a lot about railroading still for 
him to learn. So he gave up his position as 
yardmaster and went to work for another big 
transcontinental line as brakeman, a member of 
a freight train crew. There from the tops of the 
swaying cars he saw the Rockies in all their 
grandeur, and California. It was a wonderful 
experience for him. And still he worked and 
learned by doing the things that were important 
in railroading. Before long he became a con- 
ductor of a freight train, and a high grade one 
at that. Indeed the superintendent of the divi- 
sion on which he worked soon saw that he had an 
exceptional man in this chap who had come to 
him a brakeman from a smaller road, and when 
he needed a first class yardmaster he picked 
Jack Campbell for the job. Thus it was that he 
came back to a position similar to the one he 
had occupied, but with a larger road. He had 
more responsibilities but he also had a broader 
knowledge of railroading. 



THE DIVISION'S KING 251 

Eight there Jack Campbell set his eyes on the 
position of division superintendent and he never 
let his gaze waver. He adopted a policy, too, of 
training a man under him for the job he occu- 
pied, for he said to himself that the superintend- 
ent might hesitate to take him out of a position 
and put him into a better one if there was no 
one to take his place. So he trained a man to be 
ready to take his job when he left it and held 
him ready. 

Meanwhile he studied the job of the man 
ahead of him until he knew that thoroughly, 
and the result was that he was soon made in- 
spector, then trainmaster over the trains of the 
entire division. Still he trained men to fill his 
job and kept his eyes on the next position above 
him, and when the time was ripe he stepped into 
the position of assistant superintendent, and 
from there he moved to the head of the division, 
becoming a superintendent while still in his thir- 
ties and one of the youngest men to occupy that 
position in the history of his road. Nor has he 
stopped climbing, and likely enough this boy 
who spent all his spare time hobnobbing with 
the towerman back in that little middle western 



252 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

town at the age of sixteen, will one day be heard 
of as general manager or an official of one of the 
really big railroad systems of the country. 

It is worth a great deal to the fellow who is 
interested in railroads, and possibly hopes some 
day to make it his vocation, to have a word with 
a man who has gone from the bottom to a place 
near the top in railroading, and since he is the 
bulliest sort of a chap he quite willingly gave 
the writer some bits of advice to pass on to fel- 
lows who are as eager as he was to some day find 
employment at the fascinating occupation of a 
railroad man. 

" The young man who does not feel that he is 
in every way qualified to go into railroading 
should never think of entering the service, for if 
he balks at hard work, uncertain hours and all 
sorts of hardships, he will never make good. If, 
however, he is the sort of chap who just knows 
he can't be happy unless he is railroading he'll 
make good in spite of the hard work and he'll 
find fun, romance and adventure in it. 

" But it is hard enough for even that type of 
fellow to keep from feeling discouraged and 
downhearted sometimes. Why, I remember the 



THE DIVISION'S KING 253 

first night I was made yardmaster. It seemed to 
me as if they ran every train on the line into my 
yard that night. And then didn't I have a 
wreck at one end of the yard that tied up the 
whole outfit. 

"I put in fourteen hours steady work, and 
I was a mighty blue and discouraged chap 
when I saw my boss coming up the tracks 
next morning. I figured right there I had made 
a bull of the whole thing and I guessed I wasn't 
cut out for railroading after all. But when I 
told my boss of the troubles and expected that 
he was going to fire me on the spot, he slapped 
me on the shoulder and said, i Good work, young 
fellow. Fine night's work. You're tired. Go 
home and have a good sleep. You'll feel better 
then.' I went out of the yard happy after that 
and I decided that perhaps after all I might be 
a railroad man some day. 

"It is a wonderful life. No two days are 
alike. No two days bring the same problems, 
and there is a chance for a chap to go home every 
night with that fine feeling of a job well done." 



CHAPTER XIII 

RAILROAD HISTORY 

Ai/thotjgh America is to-day the foremost na- 
tion in the world in relation to railroads, and all 
that goes with this wonderfully romantic indus- 
try, the railroad, nor yet the steam locomotive, 
can be properly credited as American inventions, 
as you already know. It is quite true that 
America leads in railroading to-day. Hers are 
the biggest railroad systems in the world. There 
are more tracks in America than anywhere else 
on the globe. There are bigger, faster and bet- 
ter trains here, and American railway equip- 
ment is considered the world over as the last 
word in design and workmanship. American 
locomotives stand to-day as the best that en- 
gineering skill has developed, and they are 
sought after by every nation on the globe. 

Yet in spite of all this, America cannot claim 
254 



EAILEOAD HISTORY 255 

the credit of the invention of the steam locomo- 
tive which made the fine systems of to-day pos- 
sible. Records indicate that a Britisher, a 
young man by the name of Stephenson, was the 
first to experiment successfully with a "steam 
wagon" or locomotive, as he called his inven- 
tion. Indeed, according to Edward S. Hunger- 
ford, in whose excellent book, "The Modern 
Railroad," a wonderfully accurate history of 
railroads in America is published and from 
which many of these facts were gleaned, the first 
steam engine, or locomotive, to turn a wheel on 
American soil was built by the same Stephenson, 
and brought to America by one, Horatio Allen, 
for the Delaware and Hudson Company, a pros- 
perous canal company of New York State. 

Canals were the national traffic highways of 
this country in the days before the railroads. 
These, too, were copied from a European idea, 
for in England and on the continent of Europe, 
extensive canals were maintained to carry food- 
stuff and heavy freight from inland towns to the 
seacoast for shipment over seas. 

In America the development of canals, like the 
development of the railroad of to-day, had out- 



256 THE BOYS' BOOK OF BAILEOADS 

stripped the inventors in Europe with, long 
waterways that cut across the country for hun- 
dreds of miles. 

But at best these were unsatisfactory, and 
various forms of freight highways were experi- 
mented with, which after all were really the 
forerunners of the railroads. In England in 
the coal mining districts a type of railroad 
was developed, the rails being made of wood, 
and horse-drawn vehicles being used to 
drag the heavy bulky freight overland. These 
horse-operated, wooden-railed railroads were 
tried in this country, too, short lines being con- 
structed in sections of the mining district of 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and in the granite 
quarry district of New England. One notable 
railroad of this type being constructed and 
maintained by one Gridley Bryant in 1826, 
which was used to carry the heavy granite block 
used in the construction of the Bunker Hill 
monument, from the quarries in Quincy, Mass., 
to the docks four miles away. This railroad, 
though using horse-drawn vehicles, was a na- 
tional curiosity, and people became so curious 
about it that it was considered an excellent busi- 



EAILEOAD HISTOEY 257 

ness opportunity to open a hotel near the rail- 
road to accommodate sightseeing visitors. It is 
said to have done a remarkable business. 

But the canal continued to be the safest, fast- 
est, and generally the most satisfactory way of 
transporting freight and passengers despite cer- 
tain drawbacks. The most serious handicap 
that canal operators were confronted with was 
the fact that canals could not be successfully 
carried across mountain ranges. Hills could 
be surmounted by locks and inclined planes, 
but mountain ranges were out of the ques- 
tion. 

It was this fact that led the officials of the 
Delaware and Hudson Company to send Horatio 
Allen to England to interview Stephenson when 
word reached this country that he had perfected 
a steam wagon. The outcome of his visit abroad 
was that eventually four strange looking loco- 
motives arrived here, the first and most con- 
spicuous of which was the Stourbridge Lion. 

This " steam bug," you may be sure, created a 
sensation in this country when it arrived. It 
was landed in 'New York, from one of the big 
freight boats that plied between America and 



258 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

England, and so intense was the public's inter- 
est in the thing that Allen and the directors of 
the Delaware and Hudson Company were not 
loath to have the thing assembled, set upon 
blocks and exhibited to public view. We can 
well picture what a strange sight it must have 
been and what a sensation it caused among the 
hundreds of men in their quaint, tight-fitting 
breeches and high beaver hats, and the women in 
their strange flounced skirts, when the boiler 
was filled and a fire was built in its fire box. 
Fancy the tenseness of the crowd as they waited 
for the steam to gather, the mixture of awe, ad- 
miration and perhaps downright fear with 
which they watched the fearless Allen let steam 
into its ungainly cylinders. How the old horse 
must have smoked and coughed, and choked and 
sputtered and rattled as she got her big drive 
wheel slowly revolving, and how the crowd must 
have gaped, and wondered and finally skeptic- 
ally shook their heads and muttered, "You 
won't catch me riding behind one of those fear- 
some things. Canal boats may be slower but 
they are a lot safer." 

Thus did the steam engine make its d€but in 




(c) Ewing Galloway 

A modern passenger locomotive. Contrast this with the 
proud "dinky" below 




" 



A veteran of Civil War days, a real "flyer" of its time 



RAILROAD HISTORY 259 

this country. After its appearance in New York 
it was packed aboard a river steamboat and 
shipped up to Rondoubt, and thence by canal to 
Honesdale, Pa. Here let us quote from Mr. 
Hungerford's book, " The Modern Railroad/' the 
first actual operation of the steam locomotive in 
America. 

"Allen placed the Stourbridge Lion — which 
resembled a giant grasshopper with its mass of 
exterior valves and joints — on the crude wooden 
track of the railroad, which extended over the 
mountain to Carbondale, seventeen miles dis- 
tant. A few days later — the ninth of August, 
1829, to be exact — he ran the Lion, the first turn- 
ing of an engine wheel upon American soil. De- 
tails of that scene have come easily down to to- 
day. The track was built of heavy hemlock 
stringers on which bars of iron, two and a quar- 
ter inches wide and one-half an inch thick, were 
spiked. The engine weighed seven tons, instead 
of three tons, as had been expected. It so hap- 
pened that the rails had become slightly warped 
just above the terminal of the railroad, where the 
track crossed the Lackawaxen Creek on a bend- 
ing trestle. Allen had been warned against this 
trestle, and his only response was to call for pas- 
sengers upon the initial ride. No one accepted. 
There was a precious Pennsylvania regard 
shown for the safety of one's neck. So, after 
running the engine up and down the coal dock 
for a few minutes, Allen waved good-bye to the 



260 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

crowd, opened his throttle wide open and dashed 
away from the village around the abrupt curve 
and over the trembling trestle at a rate of ten 
miles an hour. The crowd, which had expected 
to see the engine derailed, broke into resounding 
cheers. The initial trial of a locomotive in the 
United States had served to prove its worth." 

From then on the desire for railroads in 
America grew with the swiftness of a prairie 
fire, it seems, and this despite really stubborn 
opposition from the owners of canals. Through- 
out the Atlantic Seaboard, from the southern 
states to New England, companies were formed 
to promote railroads. These were all small 
lines, almost insignificant when compared with 
some of the giant systems of to-day. Yet they 
were bold ventures indeed. 

For the most part these pioneers in railroad- 
ing sought to connect the cities on some inland 
waterway with the seaboard. Indeed it was only 
the seaboard cities of the country that were 
really developing then, with the cities on the in- 
land waterways pushing along slowly. There 
was little development of the country, otherwise, 
except where mineral deposits attracted the ven- 
turesome to build up mining communities. But it 



RAILROAD HISTORY 261 

was the railroads that this country was waiting 
for, for these meant that towns could be built 
anywhere, and that food could be brought to 
them from the outside world and their products 
brought to market without depending upon the 
slow canals. 

Some of the earliest of these railroads were 
weird in their conception. Some were regarded 
for years as common highways over which horse- 
drawn vehicles were hauled along with the op- 
eration of steam trains. Indeed it is said that it 
was not unusual for a steam train to spend an 
entire morning creeping along with snorting lo- 
comotive in the rear of a slow-moving truck 
hitched to a four-horse team and loaded with 
farm products or something of the sort. 

The operators of the canals, however, saw the 
handwriting on the wall with the appearance of 
the first of these steam horses. They could see 
that railroads were eventually going to be able 
to touch sections of the country into which they 
could not get their canals. They saw, too, the 
possibilities of swifter travel and they knew that 
if it became a matter of competition, as it 
quickly did in some sections of the country, ship- 



262 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

pers would be far more eager to have their mer- 
chandise hauled to market by the trains than by 
the canals. 

The first railroad to parallel a canal was 
built up in New England between the cities 
of Boston and Lowell, but while the project was 
being planned and even while the road was being 
built and operated, the owners of the Middlesex 
Canal started a fight to prevent the road from 
carrying freight. This was the cue for other 
canals to begin similar fights, and for a decade 
or longer there was constant friction. The canal 
owners were strong politically and financially, 
and for a long time held railroad development in 
check and prevented many of the roads from 
carrying freight at all. The fights waged hard 
and furiously and for the railroads, some of 
them mere weaklings in finances, things looked 
very unfavorable. But of course the canals 
could hardly hope to survive, and after a war- 
fare that extended in some cases for many years, 
the railroads were victorious. Indeed most of 
the canals were eventually purchased by the 
railroads they sought to defeat, and then put out 
of business. 



RAILROAD HISTORY 263 

Another situation that in a measure retarded 
the growth of the railroads was the big moun- 
tain ranges that reached from north to south and 
cut off the inland towns from the coast. It re- 
quired real exertion on the part of the railroad 
engineering genii to conquer these mountain 
ranges. Of course these were the same difficul- 
ties that the canals had faced in their day, but 
it had long been proved that canals could not 
climb mountains, whereas the railroad engineers 
knew full well that they could send steam trains 
over the ranges by the proper methods. 

The first railroad to conquer the Alleghany 
Mountains was the Portage Road, a peculiar 
sort of a railroad built in planes. This was a 
horse-operated road for a time, but later became 
steam. The first road to conquer the Appalach- 
ian chain was the road that afterward became 
the present Pennsylvania Railroad of to-day. 

The first really big railroad system wag the 
present New York Central Railroad. New 
York financiers and promoters of industry early 
became enthusiastic over railroads as compared 
with canals, and all over the state little lines 
were built, some connecting one large city with 



264 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

another, some extending to touch a half dozen 
large towns. 

A railroad directory of New York then, had 
there been such a volume, would have showed 
an array of names, sometimes almost as 
long as some of the railroads themselves, and 
most of them were fighting among themselves 
over territory, freight and everything else. But 
the captains of industry of the time, who, as 
they are now, were located in New York City, 
realized the business possibilities of these roads, 
and soon a group of them, headed by Commodore 
Vanderbilt, himself a steamboat and canal en- 
thusiast in his day, began to buy up these small 
roads that were bickering and quarreling among 
themselves, and almost before the country real- 
ized it, a real railroad system had been estab- 
lished. 

During this time bigger projects in railroad- 
ing were being developed throughout the coun- 
try. The Baltimore and Ohio, a tremendous proj- 
ect then, the Erie, four hundred odd miles long, 
the Pennsylvania and some now middle western 
roads were growing swiftly. Tremendous 
strides were being made in the rolling stock and 



RAILROAD HISTORY 265 

equipment of railroads, too. Tlie locomotive in 
a short span of years developed and grew into 
such a remarkable piece of mechanism that the 
young Englishman who conceived it could 
scarcely recognize his child. Coaches, too, grew 
swiftly from old stages equipped with flanged 
wheels to something that began to resemble the 
coaches we recognize now. 

Steel tracks were pushing out toward the Mis- 
sissippi. The Rock Island Railroad from Chi- 
cago was the first line to span that stream and 
push tracks westward into the fine country that 
for years had been slowly developed by the 
pioneers who fared westward in their prairie 
schooners. The Rock Island's tracks crossed the 
Mississippi in 1859 and the march westward was 
on. 

Then came the Civil War, and the railroads 
were pressed into service in every way. In truth 
the railroads were responsible in a great meas- 
ure for the final victory of the Northern forces, 
and the maintenance of the Union. In the 
north the railroads had reached out and were 
spread across the country in a great network of 
lines* 



266 THE BOYS' BOOK OF EAILBOADS 

These extended well below the Mason and 
Dixon line and afforded excellent means of mov- 
ing troops and supplies across the country 
swiftly. Some of the Civil War generals utilized 
the railroads for the shifting of troops from one 
front to another with tremendous success. 
Some famous battles were fought for the pos- 
session of railroad lines as the Union forces ad- 
vanced into Confederate territory, and there 
were many G. A. B. veterans who could tell 
thrilling stories of how they walked the track in 
front of a snorting locomotive, fighting every 
step of the way so as to get provisions through 
to a detachment cut off by the enemy. 

The North had a decided advantage in the 
number and miles of railroad at its command, 
for although there were several prominent rail- 
roads in the South, there was nowheres near the 
mileage or equipment available to the forces of 
the Confederacy. 

At the close of the war the railroad fever re- 
occurred, so to speak, with renewed vigor. Sud- 
denly several groups of railroad promoters saw 
the necessity for pushing westward while out on 
the Pacific Coast other groups were struggling 



BAILROAD HISTORY 267 

to conquer the Sierras and cross them eastward. 
Transcontinental lines had been undertaken be- 
fore the war. 

Work was renewed where it had been aban- 
doned. Kansas and the border states were grow- 
ing in leaps and bounds, and as fast, and even 
faster, than the railroads were pushing forward, 
towns were springing up. 

Terrific railroad building campaigns started 
and miles of new tracks were laid every week 
despite all drawbacks. Those were romantic 
days in railroading. Tremendous herds of buf- 
faloes roamed the west. Thousands of Indians 
swarmed the plains and sought in every way to 
check the advance of the railroads. The rail- 
road builders were fighters, too. They had to be. 
Every work crew was armed and armed guards 
accompanied them, for it was never possible to 
know when some war party would sweep down 
on the builders, kill and scalp them all and 
leave the railroad temporarily stranded out in 
the bad lands. Those were the days of Custer 
and Cody, General Miles and a host of other In- 
dian fighters. Cody won his name of " Buffalo 
Bill" then while working for a railroad. His 



268 THE BOYS' BOOK OF RAILROADS 

job was that of hunter for a railroad building 
crew. He kept the construction camp supplied 
with fresh beef by slaughtering buffalo from the 
great herds that roamed the plains. 

Associated with the railroad history of the 
west are hundreds of stirring tales of Indian 
fights, great hunting parties, of boom towns, 
mining adventures, bad men, two gun men, rob- 
bers, gamblers and all other types that went to 
make up this great new and expanding country. 

The railroad was fast forcing the famous pony 
express, and the western stage-coach out of ex- 
istence, and the highwaymen, too, who preyed on 
these carryalls found that pickings were grow- 
ing meagre with the coming of the new form of 
transportation. But the always versatile law- 
less ones of the border lands decided that if they 
were to be deprived of the stage-coach, as a 
means of earning a living it might be well to try 
and hold up the stage-coach's successor, and so 
a new breed of lawbreakers developed in the 
form of train robbers. They were daredevils 
and no doubting it, and many were the brilliant 
hold-ups that took place. They were lawless, 
godless, fearless men who shot equally as accu- 



EAILKOAD HISTORY 269 

rate with their left hand as they did with their 
right. They recognized not the slightest moral 
obligation to society, and a human life was little 
to them. Their exploits were so daring that they 
almost became heroes to the reading public. 

But of course they could not long survive. 
Two decades of this and the old west, with its 
Indians, two gun men, train robbers and the 
rest, began to fade into the background, into the 
historic past, for thanks to the railroad a new 
west was coming on, a west rich and prosperous 
with farms, mines, cattle ranches and billions of 
dollars in resources, and a railroad system to 
reach its long arms into the mountain ranges, 
across the prairies, and gathered all corners of 
the vast open country into close communion 
with each other. And thus America is to-day a 
great country, made great by the greatest group 
of railroad systems in the world. 



THE END 



